iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- The opioid crisis has been front and center this week thanks to President Donald Trump's visit to New Hampshire, a state that has been particularly plagued by opioid-related deaths. Drug overdose deaths are on the rise, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and in 2016, two-thirds of those cases involved opioids. On Monday, Trump announced the Initiative to Stop Opioid Abuse and Reduce Drug Supply and Demand, a program whose main components aim to address the driving forces of the opioid crisis: Reduce demand and over-prescribing of opioids, cut off the supply of illicit drugs, and help those struggling with addiction. One of the goals of the program is to ensure first responders are supplied with naloxone, brand name Narcan, a lifesaving medication to reverse overdoses. Here's what you need to know: What is Narcan/naloxone? Naloxone, also known by its brand name Narcan, is a medication that quickly reverses an opioid overdose. Opioid drugs such as heroin or prescription pain medications bind to brain receptors; in an overdose, the severe opioid effect slows breathing so much that death follows. Naloxone acts by competing with the opioid for those brain receptors, binding them and displacing the opioid. It will not stop overdoses from other kinds of drugs. Who should get naloxone? Anyone suspected or known to have an opioid overdose should be treated with naloxone. An opioid overdose is life-threatening because people can become unresponsive, breathe slowly or stop breathing altogether. If a person is not breathing, it will not hurt them to get naloxone. How is naloxone given? Naloxone is given in three ways: intravenously, injected into the muscle (think: an EpiPen style delivery) or a nasal spray. Individuals trained to administer naloxone can carry and give naloxone to a person having an overdose. Copyright 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. 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The broking subsidiary of the bank has finalised allotment of 3,30,24,165 equity shares to 28 anchor investors at a price of Rs 520 per share. Big names in anchor investors which subscribed the issue are Aditya Birla MF, Amansa Holdings Aranda Investments, Artisan MF, Axis MF, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance, Blackrock India Equities (Mauritius), DB International, DSP Blackrock MF, Edelweiss MF, FIL Investments (Mauritius), Government Pension Fund Global, HDFC MF, IDFC MF, Key Square Master Fund, Kotak MF, L&T MF, Reliance MF, Sundaram MF, Nomura, UTI MF etc. The private sector lender aims to raise Rs 4,017 crore through the public issue of ICICI Securities. The public issue of 7,72,49,508 equity shares will open for subscription on March 22, 2018. The company has fixed issue price band at Rs 519-520 per share. The offer includes a reservation of up to 38,62,475 equity shares of ICICI Securities for purchase by ICICI Bank shareholders, i.e., the individuals and HUFs who are the public equity shareholders of ICICI Bank Limited. The offer will close on March 26, 2018. Bids can be made for minimum 28 equity shares and in multiples of 28 equity shares thereafter. It would be the third subsidiary of ICICI Bank to raise funds through IPO since September 2016 after ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company and ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More State-owned steel manufacturer Mishra Dhatu Nigam (MIDHANI) has opened its initial public offering for subscription on Wednesday. SBI Capital Markets and IDBI Capital Markets & Securities are the book running lead managers to the offer. Equity shares are proposed to be listed on BSE and NSE. Here are 10 key things you should know before investing: Company Profile Established in 1973, MIDHANI is one of the leading manufacturers of special steels, superalloys and only manufacturer of titanium alloys in India. These are high value products which cater to niche end user segments such as defence, space and energy. The company has emerged as a National Centre for Excellence in advanced metallurgical production of special metals and super alloys in India. With the growth in business and operations, company achieved the status of a Mini Ratna, Category-I company in 2009. The companys products are key ingredients for strategic sectors in India, which typically are not available for import from other countries due to its national security concerns. Presently, MIDHANI conducts its operations at the manufacturing facility located in Hyderabad. It is in the process of setting up two new manufacturing facilities in Rohtak and Nellore. About the Issue The IPO comprises of an offer for sale of 4,87,08,400 equity shares by the President of India acting through the Ministry of Defence. The offer will constitute 26 percent of the post issue paid-up equity share capital. The issue consists of a reservation of up to 18,73,400 equity shares for subscription by eligible employees and the net public offer of 4,68,35,000 equity shares. The company has fixed price band at Rs 87-90 per share for the issue that is scheduled to close on March 23, 2018. Fund raising The government through MIDHANI issue is aimed to raise Rs 423.8-438.4 crore at lower and upper end of price band, by diluting 26 percent equity of the company. Objects of the Issue As it is an offer for sale issue, the company will not receive any proceeds from the Offer and all proceeds will go to the government. Hence, the objects of the offer are to carry out the disinvestment of 4,87,08,400 equity shares by the selling shareholder; and to achieve the benefits of listing the equity shares on the stock exchanges. Strengths > MIDHANI has the most advanced and unique facilities: It is the only facility in India to carry out vacuum based melting and refining through world class vacuum melting furnace such as vacuum induction melting, vacuum arc remelting, vacuum degassing/ vacuum oxygen decarburisation, electro slag remelting and electron- beam melting. > It has capability to manufacture wide range of advanced products: It has process capabilities across the product manufacturing value chain, including melting, forging, rolling, wire drawing, investment casting, machining and quality testing. > The company has a strong and an established relationship with customers. > To be at par with the global technological progress, it places strong emphasis on technology of products, technology of process and technology of equipment. Its in-house research and development team works towards improvement of product quality and processes innovation. > MIDHANI has highly qualified and experienced management and management systems. Financials MIDHANI has continuously posted profits in the last five fiscals. Promoter Promoter is the President of India acting through the Ministry of Defence. Promoter, along with its nominees, currently holds 100 percent of the pre-offer paid-up equity share capital. Assuming the sale of all Offered shares, after this offer, promoter will hold 74 percent of the post offer paid-up capital. Management Dinesh Kumar Likhi is the Chairman and Managing Director of the company. He holds a bachelors degree in metallurgical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee and masters degree in metallurgical engineering from the National Institute of Technology Rourkela. He has 35 years of experience in automobile, steel and special metal alloys industry. Dividend Policy As per CPSE Capital Restructuring Guidelines, all central public sector enterprises are required to pay a minimum annual dividend of 30 percent of profit after tax or 5 percent of the net-worth, whichever is higher. The dividend and dividend tax paid by our Company during the last five Fiscals is presented below: Dividend amounting to Rs 37.89 crore has been paid on October 25, 2017 for the FY17 pursuant to AGM held on September 25, 2017. Risks & Concerns Here are some risks and concerns highlighted by brokerage houses: > MIDHANI currently supply to strategic sectors. A decline or reprioritisation on the focus on strategic sectors will have a material adverse impact on its business. > Business operation is based out of the single manufacturing unit in Telangana. The loss of, or shutdown of the operations at the unit in Telangana will have a material adverse effect on the business, financial condition and results of operations. > A majority of revenue is derived from top five customers. Sales to top five customers contributed 64.75 percent, 70.29 percent and 65.80 percent of revenues from operations during fiscals 2017, 2016 and 2015 respectively. Hence the company is highly depended on few customers. > The manufacturing processes for the products are complex and hazardous. > The GoI has significant influence over MIDHANI which may restrict its ability to manage its business. Any change in GoI policy could have a material adverse effect on its financial condition and results of operations. > The business environment in many of principal operating segments requires extensive research, design and development expenses to keep pace with rapid technological and market changes in the strategic sectors. > Any event of delay in completion of planned capex for two new manufacturing facilities (if undertaken) will lead to cost and time overrun materially impacting the performance of the company. > The company is exposed to the risk of increase in the price of its raw materials and dependence on suppliers for supply of the raw materials. Further, if it is unable to source quality raw materials required for its business at competitive prices, its business, results of operations and profitability may be adversely affected. > As a result of national securities concerns, certain information in relation to MIDHANIs business and operations is classified as secret and confidential pursuant to which they have neither disclosed such information in the DRHP and other sources. > MIDHANI registered single digit growth rate in last four years. Revenues grew at around 9 percent CAGR from Rs 553.9 crore in FY13 to Rs 773.3 crore in FY17. PAT increased at 7.7 percent CAGR from Rs 94.0 crore in FY13 to Rs 126.3 crore in FY17. > Operations during H1FY18 were impacted by operational shutdowns of one of the forging press for maintenance. The management indicated the press had been shut down during the start of FY18 and is likely to remain shut for the rest of FY18. This facility is likely to restart only in April 2018. The impact was also visible in H1FY18 revenues of around Rs 204 crore and EBITDA margin of 22 percent (versus Rs 773 crore, 24 percent in FY17). > The proposed 100 percent foreign direct investment (FDI) in defence services with full technology transfer aims to address the need for capital investment and improved technology transfer. The 100% FDI in defence services, if permitted, will result in intense competition materially impacting the business of the company. Iron & Steel | Imports from China, 2019: 4 percent. (Image: Moneycontrol) State-owned steel company Mishra Dhatu Nigam (MIDHANI) opened its initial public offering (IPO) for subscription on March 21, with a price band of Rs 87-90 per share. The offer will close on March 23. The IPO comprises of an offer for sale of 4,87,08,400 equity shares by the President of India acting through the Ministry of Defence, which consists of a reservation of up to 18,73,400 equity shares for eligible employees. The company intends to raise Rs 438.4 crore through the issue at higher end of price band. As it is an offer for sale, the company will not receive any proceeds from the offer and all proceeds shall go to the government. SBI Capital Markets and IDBI Capital Markets & Securities are the book running lead managers to the offer. Equity shares are proposed to be listed on BSE and NSE. Brokerage: ICICIdirect | Rating: Avoid Midhani is the only company in India to carry out vacuum based melting and refining through a world class vacuum melting furnace. This enables the company to venture into new markets with innovative and advanced products. At the higher price band of Rs 90, the issue is priced at 8x EV/EBITDA FY17 and 13.3x on FY17 EPS. The order book visibility remains thin. Hence, we recommend that investors avoid subscribing to this IPO. Brokerage: Prabhudas Lilladher| Rating: Subscribe The current order book stands at Rs 5.17 billion which includes Rs2.8bn/Rs1.7bn from Defence/Space sectors to be executed over 12 month's period. It produced 6150 tonnes in FY17, growing at a 5-year CAGR of 12%. It is planning to setup new plants at Rohtak & Nellore at a capex of Rs 1 billion to be spent over 2-3 years. Company will manufacture bulletproof Jackets, bulletproof vehicles and armour products, etc at Rohtak Plant. Plant is expected to be commissioned by the end of FY19. Brokerage: IIFL The company has steadily launched new products through inhouse R&D and tech ties-up to meet the growing domestic aerospace and defence demand. Volumes have doubled over the last six years as the company ramped up its new capacities setup in FY14 amid rising demand from domestic aerospace. We believe the company is in sweet spot given the expected surge in demand and its tie-ups with major producers. FY18 performance is expected to be subdued due to shutdown of key plant for upgradation and maintenance. Brokerage: Hem Securities| Rating: Avoid The company is bringing the issue at P/E multiple of almost 29 on post issue H1FY18 annualized EPS at price band of Rs 87-90/share. Although company has most advanced and unique facilities & capability to manufacture wide range of advanced product but weak order book size of Rs 517 crore against strong topline in FY16 & FY17 doesnt infuse optimism in company. Hence, we recommend avoid on issue. Brokerage: Mehta Equities| Rating: Subscribe We feel its a good opportunity to invest in leading manufacturers of high speciality steel, Superalloys and only manufacturer of titanium alloys in India. We expect company to continue its healthy topline as well as bottom line growth with CAGR around 10% going forward. Hence, we recommend investors to subscribe on the issue for a mid-to-long term period. The strike on Ola rides ended after a discussion with key officials took place on Wednesday evening. A Times of India report says that union leaders are yet to call off the strike for Uber drivers. The meet with Uber officials are scheduled for Thursday at 1 pm benefitted benefitting AAP Manish Sisodia subsidised Sisodia benefitted Sisodia after which a call will be taken on the Uber strike. The Ola cabs will play from tonight onwards. The report further stated that the MNS union demanded that Ola agreement should also be in Marathi, along with the Ola stickers to be in Marathi as being the main demands. Ola is yet to issue an official statement.More than 82 percent of domestic consumers here arefrom thegovernment's scheme for subsidy on power, Delhi Deputy Chief Ministertoday said.The power department has50 percent of the energy charges for domestic consumers up to 400 units per month.today presented the Delhi government's first Outcome Budget for the current year in the Assembly."This has37.28 lakh consumers (82.84 percent) of the total 45 lakh domestic category consumers in Delhi," he said presenting the progress report of the Power department.Due to strict monitoring and regular review of the power systems, load shedding in Delhi was contained to only 0.06 percent for 2017, the lowest ever in the history of Delhi,said. An assessment of 30 critical indicators related with 10 programmes and schemes of the department, revealed that 60 percent of the indicators were "on track", meaning more than 70 percent achievements up to December 2017 in the current financial year, he added. The task force formed to draft a new direct tax law today sought stakeholders' feedback on their experience of filing income returns on the I-T portal as well as scrutiny procedure and levy of penalty.In November 2017, the government had constituted a six-member task force under CBDT Member Arbind Modi to draft a new direct tax law to replace the existing Income Tax Act, which has been in force since 1961."In this endeavour of drafting the new tax law, it is imperative to engage with stakeholders and general public," the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said in a statement while inviting suggestions from stakeholders.The task force has been asked to draft the law in consonance with the economic needs of the country. Stakeholders can email their feedback to rewriting-itact@gov.in by April 2. As per the feedback form, the task force has asked stakeholders to give their opinion in yes/no format along with their comments on five major points-- filing of return of income, tax credit, processing/scrutiny of return, litigation and recovery of disputed tax demand, penalty and prosecution. BJP President Amit Shah stated that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will secure 300 of the current 545 Lok Sabha seats in the upcoming 2019 elections.In an interview with Times Now, Shah stated that he is confident that the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take the helm of the government with a majority. Shah also fielded questions on the 'no-confidence' motion tabled by the Telegu Desam Party (TDP) and the current state of the NDA.The Cabinet has announced the launch of the Ayushman Bharat National Health protection scheme (NHPS) -- the umberella health scheme that has a budget of Rs 85,217 crore. The scheme is said to subsume all the Centrally sponsored health schemes. A CNBC-TV18 report states that 60 percent of the funding will come from the Centre, while 40 percent will come from the states. The National Health Mission is slated to continue on till FY 2020. The scheme will provide a coverage of Rs 5 lakh per year per family. The scheme is said to benefit 10 crore families from the poor and vulnerable section of the population. An Ayuhsman Bharat mission council will soon be in place to guide the policy mission. Niti Aayog CII Niti Aayog EVs Niti Aayog CII CNG enroute A task force constituted byon clean transportation has suggested removal of all permit requirements for electric vehicles () as they are environment friendly and the government needs to promote them.The report of the task force prepared jointly byandalso made a case for preparing a long term vision for intra-city electric buses."Task force proposes eliminating all permit requirements for electric vehicles in order to encourage electric mobility as getting and renewing permits every year is costly and time consuming."It would require a change in existing permit regime, at national and state level. Safety issues will need deliberation such that they do not impede the success of such intervention," the report said.It further said that a long-term vision for intra-city electric buses is required."Retrofittingengines with electric drive trains and pantographs for opportunity chargingcan be a way forward for electric mobility in Delhi," the report noted. Pointing out that two-wheelers and three-wheelers market has a huge potential for adopting EV technologies, the report said,"hence, they should be targeted for large scale adoption of EV technologies". The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has awarded Rs 6,212.76 crore contracts to Dilip Buildcon Ltd for widening the Bangalore-Mysore section of NH-275 in Karnataka.The projects include six-laning of 56 km stretch of Bangalore-Nidagatta section on National Highway 275 for Rs 3447.33 crore and 61 km stretch of Nidagatta-Mysore section for Rs 2765.43 crore, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways said in a statement."The entire Highway has been designed as a fully Access Controlled facility with provision of service roads on both side in entire length," the statement said, adding that bypasses have been proposed at Bidadi, Ramanagara and Channapatna, Madur, Mandya and Srirangapatna.It said the scope of work included construction of 9 major bridges, 44 minor bridges and 4 railway overbridges.The concession period is 17.5 yrs including construction period of 2.5 years. "Keeping in view of the road safety of the road users at all the major intersections have been provided with Vehicular Underpasses/Vehicular Overpasses, Light Vehicular Underpasses etc. The project also provides for one rest area and 66 bus shelters," the statement said. 19:44 Sebi algo Sebi algo Sebi algo Sebi's Capital markets regulatoris looking at a number of measures to strengthentrading framework, including by mandating the exchanges to offer shared co-location facilities and providing some services for free.has also proposed a review of trading requirement forsoftware for strengthening the algorithmic trading framework by mandating stock exchanges to provide a simulated market environment for testing of software used for such high-frequency trades.The proposed move is expected to be discussed later this month byboard, along with a number of important matters including amendments to rules on angel funds, mutual funds, buyback of shares, takeovers, registrars and bankers to issues, suspension and revocation of trading and distribution of cash benefits by listed companies. Sources said other important matters to be discussed by Sebi include new regulations for fiduciaries in securities markets and a new framework of compliance to Sebi rules by listed entities under insolvency resolution. Pharma USFDA Sun Pharmaceutical Industries today announced that it has received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Ilumya (tildrakizumab-asmn) drug for the treatment plaque psoriasis. "We have received USFDA approval for Ilumya for the treatment of adults with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis. Psoriasis is a chronic immune disease that appears on the skin. It is a non-contagious disorder that speeds the growth cycle of skin cells and results in thick scaly areas of skin. Ilumya tildrakizumab-asmn Sun Pharmaceutical Industries today announced that it has received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for drug for the treatment plaque psoriasis. "We have received USFDA approval for Ilumya for the treatment of adults with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis. Psoriasis is a chronic immune disease that appears on the skin. It is a non-contagious disorder that speeds the growth cycle of skin cells and results in thick scaly areas of skin. "With the approval of Ilumya and our long-standing commitment in dermatology, we are focused on making a difference for people living with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis," Sun Pharma North America president and chief executive officer Abhay Gandhi said. Talks over a USD 1.3 trillion government spending bill neared completion today as the White House and Capitol Hill Democrats ironed out deals on a first round of funding for President Donald Trump's US-Mexico border wall.GOP aides said that Trump would win USD 1.6 billion for border wall and other physical barriers along the border, which would construct older wall designs, but that he would be denied a more recent, far larger USD 25 billion request for multi-year funding for the wall project. Democrats said just USD 641 million would go to new segments of fencing and walls that double as levees.Negotiators planned to officially unveil the massive government-wide spending bill later in the day in hopes of passing it before a Friday midnight deadline to avoid a government shutdown. A temporary funding bill to keep operations going this weekend might be required.The top four leaders of both House and Senate are slated to meet this morning to try to seal the agreement, aides said.The bill would give Trump a huge budget increase for the military, while Democrats would cement wins on infrastructure and other domestic programs that they failed to get under President Barack Obama.The rupee ended little changed at 65.21 against the US dollar today ahead of the Federal Reserve's policy meet outcome. The greenback's weakness against other currencies overseas helped the domestic unit, market watchers said.The rupee opened a tad lower at 65.2175 from its overnight closing of 65.20 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market here and largely traded in a small range with a positive bias.Expectations that the US Federal Reserve will tighten its monetary policy supported rupee sentiment initially. Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth Rs 98.44 crore today, as per provisional data. Basu Basu Scotland Yard's newly appointed Indian-origin counter-terrorism chief, Neil, has launched a new campaign to urge the public to help in the fight against terrorism.The Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner of Specialist Operations revealed that last year more than a fifth of reports from the public produced intelligence which is helpful to police."Since the beginning of 2017, we have foiled 10 Islamist and four right-wing terror plots, and there is no doubt in my mind that would have been impossible to do without relevant information from the public,"said at the launch of Action Counters Terrorism (ACT) campaign in London yesterday."We have been saying for some time now that communities defeat terrorism, and these figures demonstrate just how important members of the public are in the fight to keep our country safe," he noted.According to the police data, of the nearly 31,000 public reports to the Met Police's Counter Terrorism (CT) Policing unit during 2017, more than 6,600 (21.2 per cent) resulted in useful intelligence information used by UK officers to inform live investigations or help build an intelligence picture of an individual or group. Research carried out by CT Policing suggests that while more than 80 per cent of people are motivated to report suspicious activity or behaviour, many are unclear exactly what they should be looking for. Balrampur Chini KCP Gayatri Mawana Dalmia Rana Dhampur Dwarikesh Sugar stocks surged up to 9 percent today after the government scrapped the 20 percent export duty on raw and refined sugar to boost shipments.Shares ofMills soared 8.90 percent,Sugar & Industries Corporation 5.28 percent,Sugars 2.54 percent,Sugars 1.70 percent,Bharat Sugar and Industries 1.20 percent,Sugars 1.02 percent,Sugar Mills 0.90 percent andSugar Industries 0.72 percent on BSE.The government yesterday scrapped export duty of raw and refined sugar to boost shipments as the country is all set to produce record 29.5 million tonnes of the sweetener in the current 2017-18 marketing season. Export duty on sugar was 20 percent. Max Financial Services today approved raising of Rs 5,000 crore in one or more tranches to fuel the growth of its subsidiary Max Life Insurance.The decision was taken at the company's board of directors meeting held today.The board considered raising of funds by way of debt for the purpose of making investments in its subsidiary Max Life Insurance Company Ltd (Max Life) to enable it to drive growth through acquisition opportunities, Max Financial Services said in a regulatory filing.The board approved availing of borrowing in one or more tranches "for an amount aggregating up to Rs 5,000 crore", the filing said.The fund raising is subject to approval from shareholders and other regulatory requirements. Stock of the company closed 1.80 per cent up at Rs 433.65 on the BSE. 16:47 Sebi cos Sebi corporates plans to bring in additional disclosure requirements for listedundergoing insolvency resolution process as well as amend norms pertaining to minimum public shareholding norms and other provisions for such entities, a senior official said. The proposal comes at a time when there are increasing number of cases coming up under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) as entities look to address issues of stressed assets in a time-bound manner. Sebi Sebi's Sebi CIRP The regulator is planning to come out with a discussion paper on compliance withnorms by listed companies undergoing insolvency resolution process. The proposal is likely to be discussed byboard during its meeting on March 28, the official said.Amendments are being proposed for certainnorms on the basis of three stages of Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process -- pre, ongoing and poststages. Listed companies under CIRP are likely to be subject to various disclosure requirements. Such entities would have to disclose about filing of application for initiation of CIRP as well as when creditors initiate the process and amount of default mentioned in the application. Besides, the entities would be asked to disclose details about the number of bids received by the insolvency resolution professional, filing of resolution plan as well as approval of the plan by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), among others. The panel of economic advisers to the German government slightly raised its growth forecast for Europes largest economy but warned that a spiral of protectionist measures could damage the robust upswing, reports Reuters. The five economists who advise the German government on policy said they expected gross domestic product to grow by 2.3% this year, up 0.1 percentage points from their previous forecast in November. For 2019, they forecast 1.8% economic growth. British workers overall pay rose at the fastest pace in nearly two-and-a-half years over the three months to January, reports Reuters. The Office for National Statistics said workers total earnings, including bonuses, rose by an annual 2.8% in the three months to January, the biggest increase since the three months to September 2015 and compared with an upwardly revised 2.7% rise in the three months to December. State-owned Indian Oil Corporation has launched home-delivery of diesel on a pilot basis in Pune and plans to expand doorstep delivery of the fuel to other parts of the country in near future, its Chairman Sanjiv Singh said. realisation Average price realisation of coal sold by Coal India through fuel supply pacts fell 3.4% to Rs 1,182 per tonne in October-December in comparison to the previous quarter, Minister of Coal Piyush Goyal told Lok Sabha in a written reply. Private equity investments witnessed a two-fold jump in February with transactions worth $1.3 billion taking the deal tally for the first two months of this year to $2.3 billion, tax and advisory firm Grant Thornton said. There were 62 PE deals worth $1,330 million, while in the corresponding period last year there were 45 such transactions worth $588 million. (PTI) Chinas central bank laid out rules for foreign payment firms that aim to provide electronic payment services there, reports Reuters. Foreign firms will have to obtain licenses beforehand and client data and other information will have to be stored in China. British superbike maker Triumph Motorcycles has launched the all-new TIGER 800 XCX and XR line-ups in India priced between Rs 11.76 lakh and Rs 13.76 lakh. 15:06 Essar Numetal NCLT In a move that will add to the complexity of Essar Steel's auction, Numetal has moved the Ahmedabad bench of the National Company Law Tribunal, seeking declaration that its bid for the stressed steel company is eligible. The development comes at a time when the resolution profession overseeing the auction is meeting Essar Steel's lenders in Mumbai. From April 1, companies will have to pay 50-60% more for insuring their employees as insurance companies are set to hike premiums on the group cover. Sources told Moneycontrol News' M Saraswathy that this will be passed on to employees since a large proportion of corporates have a co-pay element. PNB 000cr hawala The Enforcement Directorate has evidence suggesting that Gitanjali Gems and Nirav Modi companies routed Rs 2,000 crore back into the country through the hawala route, a senior official told Moneycontrol News Tarun Sharma. The agency has also found evidence of inter-state money transfers by one of the biggest hawala operators in the country. This operator was very active in a Mumbai-based steel company whose promoters had siphoned off money, and is being investigated by the ED. 3bn An avalanche of apparently mistaken orders at the close knocked Taiwans third-biggest stock down almost 10% in minutes, draining $3 billion from its market value, reports Bloomberg. Formosa Petrochemical Corp lurched from around 116 Taiwan dollars to 106 in a cascade of orders that culminated in a 15.2 million-share closing auction - a trade valued at more than $55 million. This stock had averaged about 2.9 million shares of volume for full-day sessions since September. The market has lost more than half of its gains as volatility increased ahead of the outcome of Federal Reserve's policy meeting due later today. Globally investors expect a rate hike from the US central bank. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's commentary on future rate hikes will also be closely watched. The Sensex is up close to 150 points while the Nifty Midcap is off its day's high, trimming gains to 0.15% from a percent. Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad warned social media platforms like Facebook of 'strong action' if any attempt was made by them to influence the country's electoral process through undesirable means, reports PTI. Reports had alleged that Cambridge Analytica used data mined from Facebook in the voter research it conducted for President Donald Trump during the 2016 elections campaign. Prasad alleged that Congress party had links with Cambridge Analytica. "My question to Congress party is whether to win elections, Congress will depend on data manipulation and theft of data," he said. "What is the role of Cambridge Analytica in social media profile of Rahul Gandhi," he asked. He alleged that Cambridge Analytica, the agency roped in by Congress to run their 2019 campaign and termed as their 'Brahmastra' in certain section of media, is accused of using bribes, sex workers to entrap politicians and stealing data from Facebook. 13th Parliamentary proceedings were washed out for the 13th consecutive day as members of some parties like the AIADMK and TRS continued with their noisy protests, with the Lok Sabha unable to take up the notices of no-confidence motion against the government for the fourth day, reports PTI. Mindtree Coffee Day Enterprises has said that its promoter VG Siddhartha will vote alongside and in tandem with the company with regard to their shareholding in mid-sized IT company, Mindtree. An explosion rocked Kabul as the Afghan capital celebrated the Nawruz holiday marking the start of the Persian new year. Officials told Reuters that 26 people have died in the blast which was triggered by a suicide bomber. 13:59 Zuckerberg In the two weeks before Facebook's latest struggles, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 1.14 million shares as part of regularly scheduled programs. That was the most insider selling for any public company in the United States, going back as far as three months, according to Argus Research's Vickers Weekly Insider. (CNBC) The market continues to trade higher, though is off the day's high. The Sensex is up around 200 points. Investors await the Fed rate decision due later today. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's commentary on future rate hikes will also be closely watched. Bharti Airtel is up 4% after Goldman Sachs reiterated its buy rating and add the stock to its conviction list. Pharma USFDA Alembic Pharmaceuticals said the US health regulator has made three observations after inspecting its formulation facility in Panelav, Gujarat. The company said in a regulatory filing that none of the observations are related to data integrity or repetitive in nature. 13:18 Sadbhav NHAI 568cr Sadbhav Infrastructure Project has bagged two road projects worth Rs 1,568 crore from the National Highways Authority of India in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. "The company has received letter of award from NHAI for new hybrid annuity project in Andhra Pradesh. Project bid price is Rs 520.3 crore," it said in a BSE filing. The project is for four lane connectivity to Visakhapatnam Port Road from 0 km to 12.7 km in Andhra Pradesh. In a separate filing, the company said it has received letter of award from NHAI for new hybrid annuity project worth Rs 1,047.62 crore in Gujarat. "The project is for upgradation to four lane with paved shoulder of Bhimasar Junction of NH-41 to Anjar- Bhuj up to Airport Junction from 0 km to 65.478 km of NH-341 in Gujarat," it said. 13:01 Ashok 321cr Ashok Leyland said it has won an order worth Rs 321 crore for supply of 2,100 buses from The Institute of Road Transport (IRT) in Tamil Nadu. In a BSE filing, it said, "it bagged an order from IRT, Tamil Nadu, for supply of 2,000 passenger chassis and 100 of fully built small buses to various state transport undertakings". The Hinduja Group flagship firm said this order is scheduled to be supplied in the first half of next fiscal. Reliance Communications (RCom) said its bondholders approved its asset selling plan. Holders of the companys $300 million bonds have approved the sale of assets to Reliance Jio Infocomm, owned by Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries, and monetisation of other real estate assets, RCom said in a statement. The Trump Administration has decided to slap an anti-dumping duty on the stainless steel flanges imported from China and India after it found in its preliminary probe that both the countries had provided subsidies to the exporters, reports PTI. The Department of Commerce has found that exporters from China and India have sold stainless steel flanges in the US at 257.11% and 18.1% to 145.25% less than the fair value, respectively, according to an official statement. Firms in India are most concerned about rising protectionism across the world, which in turn is affecting cost of cross-border trade and international business, a survey by HSBC has found. Other regions where the sentiment is strongest among companies are MENA (70%) and Asia Pacific (68%). In the US, 61% believe protectionism is on the rise, while in Europe, half (50%) are seeing a rise in protectionist tendencies. The Supreme Court pulled up Jaypee Associates asking the company to deposit Rs 200 crore in two equal instalments before the apex courts registry by April 15 and May 10, reports Moneycontrol's Vandana Ramnani. The court has further listed the matter for hearing on April 16. Whether JAL complies with the first installment order will be key to distribution of funds to homebuyers who have purchased flats in the company's Noida projects. The court has also asked the resolution professional not to finalise the resolution plan without it's approval. midcaps The market continues to trade strong but is slightly off the day's high, with the Sensex rising more than 200 points and the Nifty hovering around 10,200 levels. eyes are on the outcome of US Federal Reserve meeting due later today. The street is expecting a rate hike. Investors will also be closely eyeing Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's commentary on future rate hikes. Midcaps continue to hold on morning gains, with the Nifty Midcap rising a percent. Sanjeev British-Indian steel tycoon Sanjeev Gupta has made a formal bid to acquire an aluminium wheels company from a French manufacturer, reports PTI. Gupta's global industrial group, GFG Alliance, submitted the bid to the court administrators for AR Industries (ARI) at Chateauroux in the Centre-Val de Loire region of France. If GFG Alliance is successful in its bid, it could help save nearly 400 jobs as part of a plan to rescue and revive ARI, the only French manufacturer of aluminium wheels. The offer was made by GFG Alliance member, Liberty Group, which is also currently in the process of acquiring Aluminium Dunkerque, Europe's largest aluminium smelter from Rio Tinto as part of a drive to establish France as a major operating hub for the group. Warren Buffett has told Berkshire Hathaway that he does not want an increase in compensation. "Due to Mr Buffett's desire that his compensation remain unchanged, the Committee has not proposed an increase in compensation," Berkshire Hathaway said in a securities filing. Buffetts for Berkshire does not end with his salary. The filing also reveals he gave $50,000 last year to the company for the reimbursement of personal expenses such as postage and phone calls. (CNBC) Petitions for H1-B visas, popular among Indian IT professionals, will be accepted from April 2, reports PTI. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) also announced the suspension of premium processing of all H-1B petitions which are subject to annual caps. The H1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. G20 The United States is not seeking a trade war over tariffs but does not fear one, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said after a meeting of G20 finance ministers. A trade war "is not our goal, but we are not afraid of it," Mnuchin told AFP. Htin Kyaw Myanmar's president and Aung San Suu Kyi's right-hand man Htin Kyaw stepped down after two years in the position, his office said. "Myanmar President U Htin Kyaw resigned on March 21, 2018," a statement on the president's official Facebook page said, adding that a new leader would be selected "within seven working days". Amazon.com became the second most valuable publicly listed US company on Tuesday, surpassing Google parent Alphabet for the first time. Amazon shares finished up 2.69% at $1,586.51, for a market capitalisation of $768 billion, underscoring Wall Streets confidence in its relentless expansion into cloud computing, groceries and other new businesses, reports Reuters. Alphabet lost 0.39%, trimming its stock market value to $762 billion, as the Street fretted about regulatory fallout following revelations that a political consulting firm had improperly obtained personal data on 50 million Facebook users. YoY Chinas fiscal revenue surged 15.8% in the first two months of this year from a year earlier, the Finance Ministry said in a statement. Government spending for the January-February period rose 16.7% on-year, it stated. 10:32 WhatsApp Amid the turmoil of the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton told his Twitter followers to delete Facebook, reports CNBC. "It is time. #deletefacebook," he wrote on the social media platform. 09:58 Uday Kotak Billionaire banker Uday Kotak has suggested that the government must set up a full-fledged committee with significant analysis in three areas of ownership, governance and risks to tackle the current banking system woes. In an exclusive chat with Moneycontrol News Beena Parmar, Kotak said that as underwriters of risks, bankers must share the blame for the PNB scam. Bitcoin is rallying after the Group of 20 nations steered clear of calling for a coordinated clampdown on the cryptocurrency market. It jumped as much as 5.5% to $8,889 after hovering between 8,400 and 8,600 for the past day. While the G-20 highlighted the rising risk of cryptocurrencies, traders are relieved the ministers didnt call for tighter regulation, according to John Spallanzani, a portfolio manager at Miller Value Partners, told Bloomberg. The market is trading sharply higher, tracking positive cues from global peers ahead of the outcome of US Federal Reserve meeting due later today. The street is expecting a rate hike. Investors will also be closely eyeing Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's commentary on future rate hikes. The Sensex is up more than 200 points and the Nifty is inching towards 10,200 levels, led by banks and Reliance Industries. Midcaps outshine frontliners, with the Nifty Midcap index rising nearly a percent. 08:47 Cipla USFDA Cipla said it has received observations from the US health regulator for its Goa plant which are procedural in nature. The United States Food and Drug Administration had conducted a product specific pre-approval inspection at company's Goa plant in January 2018, Cipla said in a BSE filing. At this stage, it does not foresee any impact on the other products being manufactured/filed from the plant. "Post this inspection, we have received 2 product approvals from the plant," it added. 08:43 PSBs Uday Kotak Uday Kotak, Managing Director of Kotak Mahindra Bank, sees the share of public sector banks reducing by 30% in the next five years. He said banks will have to improve their underwriting standards to stay relevant. 08:38 Nilekani Nilekani PSB privatisation Infosys Chairman and Unique ID project architect Nandan Nilekani said the original rationale for bank nationalisation has ceased to exist. He feels privatisation is the way forward for public sector lenders, citing taxpayers' interest, reports PTI. 08:21 DRI Nirav Modi 890cr SEZ Goods worth nearly Rs 890 crore, involving customs duty of around Rs 52 crore, may have been diverted by the SEZ-based units of the Nirav Modi Group of companies to the domestic market, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) said in a statement. 08:07 ICICI 000cr ICICI Bank said it has raised Rs 4,000 crore from bonds to fund growth. "The Committee of Executive Directors of the bank has approved the allotment of 40,000 Basel III compliant unsecured subordinated perpetual Additional Tier I bonds in the nature of debentures aggregating Rs 4,000 crore on private placement basis," it said in a regulatory filing to stock exchanges. "The notes carry a coupon of 9.15% payable annually and were issued at par," it said. Billionaire Wall Street financier Peter Peterson, who co-founded private equity firm Blackstone Group and served as US President Richard Nixons commerce secretary, died on Tuesday of natural causes, his family said. He was 91 The European Commission will propose rules designed to make digital companies pay their fair share of tax and is set to hit US tech giants such as Google and Facebook. The Commission is expected to propose that companies with significant digital revenues in Europe pay a 3% tax on their turnover, according to a draft seen by Reuters. China is testing unmanned tanks which could be equipped with artificial intelligence, state-run newspaper Global Times reported. Binani The resolution professional overseeing the auction of Binani Cement has alleged fraudulent transactions by promoters of the company. In an application filed in the National Company Law Tribunal on March 12, Vijaykumar Iyer said a forensic consultant was appointed in November to review some of the transaction by Binani Cement. He has alleged that the promoters diverted funds that affected the company's working capital provisions. Zervos behaviour US President Donald Trump faced legal challenges from women on two fronts as a defamation lawsuit brought by a former Apprentice TV show contestant moved forward and a former Playboy model who said she had an affair with Trump sued to undo a confidentiality agreement, reports Reuters. A New York state judge denied a bid by Trump to toss a defamation lawsuit by Summer, a former contestant on NBCs The Apprentice, raising the prospect that he might have to answer questions about hisin court. Playboy model Karen McDougal sued a media company that she said paid her $150,000 to keep quiet about an affair that she said she had with Trump. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Stewart & Mackertich Wealth Management Ltd. The Nifty previous day ended 0.3 percent up at 10,124.35. It reacted up sharply from days low 10,049.10 towards finishing off the session above 10,100 mark. But, the pullback remained capped as it failed to progress beyond 10,155. On the brighter side, our dual support zone of 10,030 to 10,000 is still well intact. Ending the session with a bullish body candle suggests it may continue taking support around 10,030 and 10,000 in coming sessions as well. Hence, selective buy on dips is advised. However, US FOMC meet on Federal Reserves rates, scheduled to be held on Wednesday, is going to be the next trend determining factor. On a similar note, we prefer buying on dips, irrespective of US FOMC meet outcome, as long as the critical prolonged upward trending channel support placed around 10,000 mark is intact. On the Nifty hourly chart; RSI reacted up from the oversold zone implies it may once again challenge upside resistances placed around 10,140, 10,190 and 10,230. Chart pattern suggests, Nifty successful closing above 10,140 brightens the possibility of a full length movement towards 10,230. Nifty patterns on multiple time frames show, Nifty critical support of 10,000 is intact, which may provide a springboard to a quick pullback towards 10,190 and 10,230. The Bank Nifty previous day ended 0.32 percent down at 24,168.20. It ended with a Doji candle. Downside critical support is placed around 24,000 levels while the upside resistances are placed around 24500, 200 daily EMA. Based on thorough technical study, the research firm has recommended Voltas and BHEL which can give up to 5% return in the near short term: Voltas | Rating: Buy | Target: Rs 650, stop loss: Rs 600 | Return: 5% After reacting down from Rs 645 levels, Voltas is trying to find support around 30 daily EMA placed around Rs 617 levels. Ending the session in green after three sessions of falls might be an indication of reversal. Rebounding from the critical support while the primary uptrend is well intact is an indication of a strong pull back. RSI on daily chart retesting the downward trend line breakout support. Hence, based on the above mentioned observations, we recommend Voltas as a buy on dips for the short-term upside target of Rs 650. BHEL | Rating: Buy | Target: Rs 88, stop loss: Rs 79 | Return: 7% After reacting down from the recent high of Rs 107 levels, BHEL has again come down to the previous double bottom zone placed around Rs 82 levels. Price continues making lower lows while RSI makes double bottom on the daily chart might be an early indication of a strong pullback. Based on the above mentioned observations, we recommend BHEL as a strong buy on dips for the short-term upside target of Rs 88. : The author is Technical Analyst at Stewart & Mackertich Wealth Management Ltd. The views and ideas expressed above may have been suggested to the clients of Stewart & Mackertich Wealth Management Ltd. It is advised that investors/traders should consult with their Certified Experts before taking any investment decision. Here are stocks that are in news today: Greenply Industries to explore an option to demerge its MDF Division into Greenpanel Industries NRB Bearings approves dividend at Rs 1.40 per share Ashoka Buildcon declares interim dividend Ashoka Buildcon emerges lowest bidder for Mort&H project DLF declares interim dividend at Rs 1.20 per equity share Hindustan Aeronautics IPO subscribed 99% on final day Sandhar Technologies IPO subscribed 40% on Day 2 Tata Motors, Nissan to hike vehicle prices from April Raymond to raise Rs 100 cr via NCDs Vedanta plans to raise Rs 4,500 cr via NCDs Sterlite Power acquires Rs 1,500 cr Goa-Tamnar MOIL: Sunil Porwal has been appointed as the government nominee director on the firms Board. Equitas Holdings: The firm will allot 1,59,798 shares at Rs 10 each under ESOP scheme. Starlit Power: The firm has acquired Rs 1,500 crore Goa-Tamnar project. UltraTech Cement: According to a PTI report, the company may get support from Binani creditors. Ashok Leyland: The company will be supplying 50 e-buses for Ahmedabads BRT corridor, according to a report in The Hindu BusinessLine. Larsen & Toubro: The company is set to win EPC contract for new dry dock in Kochi, The Hindu BusinessLine reported. USFDA issued a Form 483 with 3 observations for Alembic Pharmaceuticals' Panelav facility Reliance Infra arm moves HC for execution of Rs 5200 crore award ET Reliance Communications lenders move SC against freeze on assets sale ET Reliance Jio board to meet on March 23 to consider raising up to Rs 20,000 crore ET Godrej Agrovet might acquire Ruchi Soya - BS SBI moves SC on RCom assets to cover loans - ToI IndiGo, Qatar Airways to make joint bid for Air India - FE Disclosure: Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Bears are not in a position to give up their game fully since February barring few sessions, as the market fell 10 percent from its record high hit on January 29, 2018. In fact, it has turned negative after Budget 2018, hitting fresh lows of the calendar year. Trend has been so negative-to-volatile that buyers strength has been declining day after day. Everyone on the Street agreed that correction was long overdue after one-sided 35 percent rally from 2017 till January 2018. There are several reasons that pulled down the Nifty by more than 1,100 points in one and half months. To name few reasons which are major ones are long term capital gains tax imposition in the Union Budget, likely early & more than three Fed rate hikes in 2018, banking fraud and political uncertainties after TDP pulled out from NDA government. As these are enough and additional reasons ahead of March quarter earnings, the Nifty is likely to breach 10,000 levels soon amid volatile trade, technical as well as fundamentals experts suggest. According to them, it is a "sell on rally" market now. The Nifty is around 100 points away from its 10,000-mark. "Indian stock markets continue to slide down due to uncertainty around the banking sector and current political situation given the election schedule this year. This has the potential to de-rail the sentiment & earnings growth for the next year," Hemang Jani, Head - Advisory, Sharekhan said. While reiterating immediate target of 10,000 for Nifty, Jayant Manglik, President, Religare Broking said he feels correction could be steep on broader front thus suggest maintaining extra caution in midcap and smallcap space. "Breach of the swing low confirms wave extension on the downside with key targets placed at 10,000-9,800," Gaurav Ratnaparkhi, Senior Technical Analyst, Sharekhan said. Here is the list of 10 stocks that can give up to 76 percent return: Brokerage: Prabhudas Lilladher SBI | Rating - Buy | Target - Rs 341 | Return - 37% Prabhudas Lilladher attended the SBI's subsidiaries day represented by chief executives of non-lending business and key RRBs. Key takeaways from the session were (i) Improve engagement with bank for cross sell & leverage bank's technology knowhow & reach (ii) Improve USP of each subsidiary to create niche visibility over next few years and (iii) Plans for unlocking value for each subsidiary. Currently 7 percent of SBI's total fee income is contributed from cross sell of products of subs which SBI targets to increase the share by 3x in next few years, while key large subs contributed 20 percent of Bank's profits in FY17 and has substantially improved in FY18, we believe bank network synergies are yet to be exploited and could further improve market share for subs, adding higher value to the bank valuation. In current SOTP (sum-of-the-part) of Rs 341 (reduced from Rs 350) we value subs at Rs 80 (up from Rs 74 on recent TP increase in SBI Life). We have tweaked FY18 & FY19 numbers on credit losses for the bank due to some impact from revised stressed asset guidelines but should also benefit from the resolution process from NCLT. Retain 'Buy'. Brokerage: Motilal Oswal Shilpa Medicare | Rating - Buy | Target - Rs 749 | Return - 53% The receipt of establishment inspection report (EIR), with unchanged status voluntary action initiated (VAI) for the Jadcherla formulations facility from the USFDA is a positive. The USFDA had inspected this facility over November 20-30, 2017. It had issued a form 483, with 10 observations. Shilpa has only one formulation and resolution of the issues in the 483 was critical for its existing business and for future ANDA approvals. The issuance of EIR and status remaining unchanged at VAI implies that the inspection is closed successfully and will not be a show stopper for SLPAs future approvals. Currently, Shilpa has 31 ANDAs pending for approvals. On overall basis, we expect 16 percent CAGR in sales to Rs 1,200 crore and 35 percent CAGR in PAT to Rs 270 crore over FY17-20. We re-iterate Buy with price target of Rs 749. Hindustan Unilever | Rating - Buy | Target - Rs 1,515 | Return - 17% Market demand has been improving gradually over the past few quarters. Encouragingly, growth has been broad-based across categories and regions. Central India continues to do better than the rest of the regions for HUL, in line with the companys strategy. Although rural performance has improved substantially, rural demand growth is yet to reach the buoyant historical levels, when it was 1.5-2x of urban demand growth. Wholesale and CSD channels, which were lagging behind for many quarters, are now back to normal. Tailwinds in terms of rural demand recovery, margin accretion due to further benefits of zero based budgeting (ZBB) and medium-term benefits of GST will also accelerate its earnings trajectory. Adspend intensity in the market was almost flattish during the quarter. Consequently, we expect 18.8 percent EPS growth over FY17-20, as against 6.1/10.6/10.7 percent EPS CAGR over the last 3/5/10 years. We maintain our Buy rating with a revised target price of Rs 1,515. Brokerage: Kotak Securities Dilip Buildcon | Rating - Buy | Target - Rs 1,217 | Return - 26% We met with the management of Dilip Buildcon and NHAI official during their investor meet to get an understanding of upcoming opportunities in road sector and how DBL is expected to benefit from the same. DBL has managed to bag orders worth Rs 13,900 crore in current fiscal till date and has mentioned that effective bidding is the key to win the projects and maintain margins. Company is confident of maintaining similar trend in order inflows for FY19 too with improved execution. We maintain estimates and target price of Rs 1,217 based on 20x FY20 earnings. Brokerage: KR Choksey Aarti Industries | Rating - Buy | Target - Rs 1,455 | Return - 28% The company currently trades at two year forward P/E multiple of 20x. Going forward, we believe Aarti Industries should fetch premium valuations on account of 1) higher volumes aided by capacity addition plans; 2) bolstering demand from end user segments; 3) higher revenue visibility owing to multi-year deals; and 4) steady balance sheet despite higher capital requirements. Accordingly, we value the company at a P/E multiple of 25x on FY20E and arrive at a target price of Rs 1,455 per share resulting into an upside of 27.6 percent from the CMP of Rs 1,140 per share. We assign a 'Buy' rating on the stock. Going ahead, we estimate revenue/EBITDA/PAT to grow at 16/13/14 percent over FY17-FY20E. Further, we factor in a total capex of Rs 1,750 crore over FY18-FY20E for the capacity addition plans. We expect the company to fund the same partially through debt and partially through internal accruals. Accordingly, we expect the total debt of the company to increase by Rs 350 crore with net debt/equity ratio to improve to 0.7x by FY20. Consequently we estimate return ratios to observe a drop in FY20 with ROCE/ROE to reach 18/19 percent by FY20 on account of ongoing capex plans. Brokerage: ICICIdirect Gujarat State Petronet | Rating - Buy | Target - Rs 200 | Return - 12% Gujarat State Petronet's (GSPL) board has approved the acquisition of up to 28.4 percent stake in Gujarat Gas from GSPC. The transaction will involve acquisition of 3.9 crore shares and be a related party transaction between two government companies, thus, requiring no regulatory approval. Currently, GSPL has a 25.8 percent stake in Gujarat Gas. The new acquisition will take the total stake to 54.1 percent making it a holding company of Gujarat Gas. GSPL's transmission business is expected to report stable volumes in the backdrop of growth in the CGD and PNG sectors and increased LNG capacity in Gujarat. In its last published public consultation document, GSPL proposed final tariffs of Rs 59.65/mmbtu (around Rs 2.1/scm) for 2017-18 to 2026-27 versus Rs 26.58/mmbtu (around Rs 1/scm) in 2016-17 for its trunk pipelines. Hence, on the back of the same, we assume tariffs of Rs 1.35/scm for FY19. We value GSPLs investments in CGD entities like Gujarat Gas (54.1 percent stake) and Sabarmati Gas (27.5 percent) at Rs 104 per share and standalone business at Rs 96 per share to arrive at a price target of Rs 200. We have a Buy recommendation on GSPL. Brokerage: Khambatta Securities Fourth Dimension Solutions | Rating - Buy | Target - Rs 294 | Return - 76% Fourth Dimension Solutions has strong experience in executing e-governance and other projects for government agencies and PSUs. We expect FDS to benefit from various ICT initiatives and incremental IT spend of the central and state governments going forward. FDS has plans to raise fresh capital through the issue of equity shares and convertible equity capital to the tune of Rs 350 crore. The equity infusion will support strong business growth for the company over the next few years. FDSs margins are quite low reflecting hardware reseller margins. As the companys projects move into the go-live phase, we expect the share of higher-margin service revenues to increase resulting in healthy overall margin expansion. FDS is now eligible to directly bid for public projects up to Rs 1,000 crore in value. This will help drive growth while supporting margin expansion. FDSs partnership with French software major Dassault Systemes and initiatives to enter the IT exports market will help the company move up the IT services value chain and contribute incremental revenue. Based on a target P/E multiple of 18, we value FDS at Rs 294 with an upside potential of 76 percent and informing a Buy rating. Brokerage: CD Equisearch Supreme Industries | Rating - Accumulate | Target - Rs 1,416 | Return - 18% Prodded by higher margins and fall in financial expense, Supremes earnings would perhaps grow at the fastest pace since fiscal ended March 2016. Higher allocation to government sponsored schemes like AMRUT, PMAS and others, demand for both agri and non-agri pipes would patently get a boost. Yet severe fluctuations in polymer prices and its trickle effect on margins are not worthy of being ignored. Revival in hardly belittling plastic piping business, earnings would vigorously resurrect next fiscal. On balance, we maintain our accumulate rating on the stock with revised target of Rs 1,416 (previous target: Rs 1,289) based on 38x FY19e earnings over a period of 6-9 months (forward peg ratio cut to 1.4; four year historical P/E (FY18 included): 33x). Brokerage: Reliance Securities Federal Bank | Rating - Buy | Target - Rs 150 | Return - 65% The bank is expected to deliver further improvement in operational performance led by improving loan book growth and improving assets liability mix. Advances grew by 5.3 percent QoQ to Rs 85,000 crore in Q3FY18, as SME, wholesale and retail (including Agri) book grew by 13.3 percent, 4.4 percent and 6.85 percent QoQ respectively. Further, continued moderation in SMA-2 balance clearly suggests fresh slippage will show declining trend in FY19. Notably, the Bank is gradually coming out of the scenario marked with higher provisioning and continued stress on asset quality for last few quarters. Management expects credit cost to remain in comfortable level of 60-70bps in FY19. Looking ahead, we expect the strong traction in earnings to continue owing to robust growth in loan book, moderate credit cost and healthy margins. We expect the banks earnings to witness 33 percent CAGR through FY17-20E and reiterate Buy recommendation on the stock with an target price of Rs 150 based on 2.3x FY19E adjusted book value. Brokerage: CESC Research Rane Holdings | Rating - Buy | Target - Rs 3,183 | Return - 20% Rane Holdings' revenues are estimated to grow at 18 percent CAGR over the next two years. Upsurge in OEM volumes coupled with focus on the Aftermarket segment would drive the top-line. Also, the companys margins are expected to improve on account of operating leverage, enhanced local procurement and energy savings. Given the healthy top-line growth and margin improvement, RHLs earnings are likely to grow at a CAGR of around 22 percent over FY18-20. Its return ratios are also estimated to expand due to margin improvement and reduction in leverage. At CMP, the stock is trading at 19/15.8X FY19/20 EPS. We initiate coverage on Rane Holdings with a Buy recommendation and target price of Rs 3,183, valuing the stock at 19X FY20E EPS. Disclaimer: The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts on moneycontrol.com are his own, and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions. Pitching for enhanced India-Japan ties in the Northeast, Japanese ambassador to India, Kenji Hiramatsu today said time was ripe to significantly expand the cooperation between the two countries in the region, backed by convergence of strategies. The ambassador was addressing a gathering at a workshop here, where he also recalled the Battles of Kohima and Imphal fought during the World War II to underline the shared history of the region. "I myself have visited Manipur twice and Nagaland once to pay tribute to the war victims. I felt people's strong wish to enhance cooperation with Japan, not only economically but also culturally and via people-to-peole contacts based on our historical connection and ethnic similarity," he said. "And, today, more than 70 years thereafter (1940s), time is ripe to significantly expand Japan-India cooperation in the Northeast, backed by the ever closer relationship between the two countries and the convergence of our strategies," Hiramatsu said. India's Act East Policy and Japan's Free and Open Indo Pacific Strategy converge in Northeast, the envoy said. The workshop on India-Japan Partnership for Economic Development in Northeast was also attended by Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh, who assured that his government would extend all cooperation for joint projects in the state. Singh said 2019 would mark 75th year of the Battle of Imphal (1944) and his government planned to host a summit in collaboration with Japan to mark the occasion. "We have also drawn up a WW II homage circuit that would enhance tourism in the state. We invite all countrymen of Japan to visit the state where some of their ancestors died during the war," he said. The chief minister also spoke about the war museum being built in the state. "Our landlocked state is blessed with scenic beauty. Modern game of polo also originated from our state. We are working on a statue of polo of about 140-ft height, which can be seen even from aerial flights," he added. Singh invited Japan to invest in the country, and assured that all projects would be dealt through a "single-window" clearance through his office. The Japanese ambassador also announced that his country would sign a grant agreement for a project for construction of a secondary school for Scheduled Tribes in Manipur, the day after tomorrow. "I am pleased and excited to join hands with the chief minister to further strengthen the ties between Japan and Manipur," he said. The envoy added that there was a "growing momentum" to boost Japan-India cooperation in the Northeast region. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Billionaire banker Uday Kotak has suggested that the government must set up a full-fledged committee with significant analysis in three areas of ownership, governance and risks in order to tackle the current banking system's woes. As underwriters of risks, bankers must share the blame, Kotak said in an exclusive chat with Moneycontrol, as he shared his views on the over Rs 13,000 crore-scam at Punjab National Bank, challenges to insolvency resolution, management changes at public sector banks and how Kotak Mahindra Bank is looking at the future of banking. Kotak, who is also the chairman of government-initiated Corporate Governance committee, believes that even with data and technology is being used to boost his business, the operational and credit risks are keeping him awake all night. Excerpts from the interview: What are the top changes seen in the banking system in the last one year apart from Insolvency? I think the first was demonetisation. This has brought in a huge drive of digitisation and biometric is a crucial part of this transformation. as a result of which we launched 811 (online opening of bank accounts through E-KYC). Second big transformational change is formalisation of financial savings that is coming through GST, RERA or other steps which is giving a big boost to financial savings coming in an organised structure. This is a more sustainable trend over long term. Third is that finally the industry structure is changing and the whole ratio between public and private sector will be more balanced in the years to come. I believe in next five years, public and private sector share will be 50:50. What will public sector banks need to do to meet competition from private banks? I think we need pretty significant management change and an ability to take risks based on judgement and not constantly fear over the shoulder. My view is that finally we need a management who can deliver. Frankly, 25 management teams (of 25 different banks) is a fairly tough job for public sector banks. So do you think consolidation is the way to go? And what about valuations of the public sector banks? I think the government probably needs to set up a committee to look at issues on bank and public sector banking, This has to be a full fledged committee of the kind the UPA set up in 2007 on ownership, governance and risks. We need a broad brush with significant analysis of these three areas. What bothers me is that the issue (PNB scam) was in the system for 6 years. Talking about the scams, do you think a scam like that at PNB is also possible in private sector banks? I think private sector banks are also following the same rules, they have fraud committees and reporting requirements to the RBI. So, I don't think a public or a private sector bank can hide from it. I would be surprised but in life at times fact is stranger than fiction (smiles). On digital, you have initiated the ABCD? We are going back to alphabets ABCD. In this somber and sober mood, we have to look at the future and the future of finance is changing. Now we are saying Artificial Intelligence (AI), biometric, customer experience and data are the four big drivers of finance. And we believe, the finance of the future will not be the finance of the past. What and how will it change business for Kotak Bank? We think significantly more data will be the basis of our decision making for risks, more focus on information security, making sure we are more robust on our technology platform and finding operational gaps so that we don't have gaps between technology and manual processes which things seep through. So, this is a whole different mindset for the future. If you are a banker, if you are in a business where your leverage is 10:1, and when you have the trust of people's money, it is very important to be awake. Under insolvency, you have been looking at stressed assets for a while without much headway. What are the hiccups still remaining? We have bid for a few assets. But I think the whole IBC process is just going through its early stages and we will certainly participate on the basis which we think makes sense for us but we don't need to be excessively carried away, If we get returns for the risks we take, we will buy it. Does that mean pricing is still an issue? I think there is pricing for known and unknown risks. I think we also need to price in for the unknown risks. Why do you think Indian banking went through the trouble it did, it is because they did not price in the unknown risks, in my view, they did not even price in the known risks. So I think do the diligence on pricing, focus on sustainability and based on that the bidding should be made. So, it is about valuations, conditionalities, the whole IRP process is also learning, the resolution professionals are also learning, so everybody has to think really differently. We have bid for a few assets but we will see how it goes. Will you look at unlocking value in your subsidiaries? We have gone reverse. We have bought the stake from our foreign partner. The shareholder of Kotak Bank has the full look through of value.The shareholder at the top will get the value. If we believe the business is valuable and if I list it, I am giving value of Kotak bank's shareholder to the third party. Therefore I don't need to list. The investors of Kotak bank can see value of my insurance business. People have the option of buy and sell in the market. So no listing plans, in fact a significant accretion is happening in our subsidiaries. In fact we are on the reverse model and are one of the rare companies who own 100 percent in our asset management and life insurance business. How do you view the promoters fleeing the country? How can India avoid it? My first question is much better diligence by the bankers. We are underwriters of risks. Of course, bankers have to share the blame in that. First and foremost, the accountability lies with the banker for doing the right underwriting. In PNB's case, I have no clue where the investigation is ongoing. What is in for Kotak bank in the next financial year? We will focus a lot on micro growth and at the same time we are clear that we have to see how we manage risks better. The one thing that differentiates banking, it is risks. That combined with the digital is the future. We run every risk operational, credit, etc...and as the holder of public money, I cannot take it for granted and therefore be awake (all night). The Parliamentary Standing Committee which has vetted the National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill recommended the Central government not to make the bridge course mandatory. The government in the Bill made a provision for a bridge course to allow AYUSH practitioners to prescribe allopathy medicines in a limited way to address the shortage of doctors in rural areas. The government's decision sparked outrage and protests from doctors who accused the government of legalising quackery. "The Committee is of the view that the bridge course should not be made a mandatory provision in the present Bill," the Parliamentary Standing Committee said presenting the submitting its report to Rajya Sabha. The NMC Bill, if passed in the Parliament, will replace the Medical Council of India (MCI) - regulatory body of medical education in the country. The 31-member committee that reviewed the Bill chaired by Rajya Sabha MP - Ram Gopal Yadav of Samajwadi Party asked the government to leave it to the states to address the problem of shortage of human resources. "The Committee, therefore, recommends that the state governments may implement measures to enhance the capacity of the existing healthcare professionals including AYUSH practitioners, B.Sc (Nursing), BDS, B.Pharma, etc, to address their State specific primary healthcare issues in the rural areas," the Committee said. The government in its submission before the committee said that the mandatory provision to include Bridge Course was to address the demand-supply gap in healthcare. The government said the doctor-population ratio of India is 1:1655 as compared with the WHO standards of 1:1000, in addition, city doctors are not willing to work in rural areas with Urban Rural ratio of doctor density (3.8:1). "There are 7,71,468 AYUSH practitioners in India who can be leveraged to improve the health access situation of the country," the government said. Further, the government said it needs large human resource for its ambitious target to revamp 1,50,000 sub health centres into health and wellness centres. The government in its bill also proposed a national register to include licensed Ayush practitioners who qualify for the bridge course. States such as Maharashtra, Assam, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh have already amended their Acts and permitted AYUSH professionals to practice modern systems and prescribe all modern medicines. The standing committee recommended to increase NMC powers to fix norms for regulating fees for a proportion of seats in private medical institutions to 50 percent. The Bill empowers the NMC to regulate fees for only 40 percent of the total seats in private medical institutions. For the rest of the seats, the institutions are free to charge the fees that they may deem appropriate as per their requirements. The standing committee also recommended against a common nationwide exit test for MBBS doctors called as the National Licentiate Examination (NLE) and asked the NLE be integrated with the final year MBBS examination and be conducted at the state level. The NMC bill proposes a common exit test for MBBS doctors called as the National Licentiate Examination (NLE) as an instrument of quality assurance, and to ensure that the quality and competencies of a doctor, before one starts practicing, are guaranteed and standardised. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More The CBI today registered a case against Chennai-based jewellery chain Kanishk Gold for defrauding a consortium of 14 banks led by State Bank of India (SBI) on loans amounting to Rs 842.15 crore. CBI today conducted searches at the official and residential premises of accused persons and Kanishk Gold at various places in Chennai. The accused persons have been contacted and asked to join the investigation. State Bank of India, which was leading a consortium of 14 public and private sector lenders to give loans to Kanishk Gold Pvt Ltd (KGPL),had requested the CBI in January to investigate the jewellery chain for the loan fraud. In a letter dated January 25, 2018 to the CBI, SBI charged Kanishk with "manipulating records, shutting shop overnight." The bank had declared the account fraudulent to the RBI on November 11, 2017. All other members followed suit and declared the account as fraudulent to the regulator. The loan amount of Rs 824 crore may swell up to more than Rs 1,000 crore after adding the interest component, the report said. Kanishk Gold, which has a registered office in T Nagar in Chennai, is owned by promoters and directors Bhoopesh Kumar Jain and his wife Neeta Jain. The bankers have been unable to contact them since its stock audit was initiated on April 5, 2017. KGPL manufactured gold jewellery which was marketed under the brand name "KRIZZ" at their manufacturing unit at Natarajapuram village, Pukkathurai, Maduranthagam taluk and Kancheepuram district. The jeweller first defaulted in March 2017 where the firm failed to pay interest to eight member banks. Kanishk stopped payments to all the 14 banks by April 2017, SBI stated. Following this, the bankers visited Kanishk's corporate office, factory and showroom on May 25 2017, but they found that the facilities were shut with no activity and stock. The same day, Bhoopesh Jain wrote a letter to his bankers admitting to falsification of records and removal of stocks that were secured as collateral to the lenders. Bankers found other showrooms of the jeweller had also been locked. "The company shut down as early as May 2017 since it couldn't cope with the losses," a representative from the Madras Jewellers and Diamond Merchants Association told Times of India. Banks have been sanctioning loans to Kanishk Gold since 2007. The loan accounts of KGPL were taken over by the SBI from ICICI in teh year 2008 with the sanction of working capital limits to the tune of Rs 50 crores and term oan imits to the tune of Rs 10 crores. In March 2011, this was converted into a multiple banking arrangement with Punjab National Bank and Bank of India. SBI had sanctioned granting of metal gold loan (MGL) to Kanishk in 2012. "Using this option, Kanishk would purchase gold in the form of bullions from nominated banks in the consortium or from the open market using credit under MGL or from its current account," SBI said. Here's a list of loans issued by several banks to Kanishk State Bank of India extended loans to the tune of Rs 215 crore, Punjab National Bank Rs 115 crore, Union Bank of India Rs 50 crore, Syndicate Bank Rs 50 crore, Bank of India Rs 45 crore, IDBI Bank Rs 45 crore, UCO Bank Rs 40 crore, Tamilnad Mercantile Bank Rs 37 crore, Andhra Bank Rs 30 crore, Bank of Baroda Rs 30 crore, HDFC Bank Rs 25 crore, ICICI Bank Rs 25 crore, Central Bank of India Rs 20 crore and Corporation Bank Rs 20 crore. Audits of Kanishk's financials were done by Ajay Kumar Jain partner at Ajay & Co Chartered Accountants and Sumit Kedia, partner, Lunawath & Associates. Citing religious reasons and tenets of the Bible, a Christian man has sought an exemption from the Supreme Court from the Aadhaar programme, according to a report by The Indian Express. Petitioner John Abraham has claimed that 12-digit biometric identification number impinges on his religious beliefs. Abraham has put forward his petition before a five-judge Constitution bench, which is hearing the Constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act. However, the petitioner said that he was not speaking on behalf of all Christians. It is clear that it is impossible for a person to go about their everyday lives without having an Aadhaar (number). Further, it is a biometric ID, with fingerprint and iris scan dataThis is similar to the warning issued in the Book of Revelation, Abraham said, according to the newspaper. Various interpretations of the book note that the beast is symbolic of modern day political power. The Book, at Chapter 14, warns that anyone who receives such a number will face dire consequences, he added. While appearing for Abraham, senior advocate Sanjay Hegde told the Constitutional bench that his client and his family are devoted Christians and have sought exemption from Aadhaar enrolment only on the ground of their being conscientious objectors to the same. The bench asked if a person (could) refuse to opt for the Income Tax saying that his conscience does not allow it? the report suggests. The Chief Justice of India (CJI) also pointed out that according to Article 25 of the Constitution, freedom of conscience stands independent of individual conscience. The bench is set to reply in the Aadhaar Acts constitutional validity case, on Wednesday. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will secure 50 percent, or 300, of the 545 Lok Sabha seats, in the 2019 general elections, party president Amit Shah said in an interview to Times Now. Shah said he was confident that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be at the helm of the government with a majority. "We are ready to fight a battle for 50 percent," Shah said, adding that in a multiparty democratic system, over 50 percent margin for a single party is a huge mandate. Speaking about the recent loses in various bypolls, Shah said that the party is deeply analysing the results booth-wise, adding that the defeats were received very seriously by party members. The BJP president, however, added that losses in bypolls are not indicative that public perception has gone against the party. "BJP has been winning all the states where we had a good electoral base but it did not manifest in votes," Shah said. Taking a dig at the Congress ahead of the upcoming Karnataka assembly elections, Shah questioned the party's idea behind playing politics over the Lingayat issue. The BJP chief said that his own party has been practicing politics in the entire country, but has never played caste politics. The Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in Karnataka had recently decided to recognise Lingayats as an independent religion and seek approval from the Centre for the same. Amit Shah said with confidence that the BJP will win the Karnataka assembly polls with a massive majority. Clearing rumours about a rift between the party and its allies, Shah said that there is absolutely no problem with other members in the NDA alliance. The BJP chief also fielded questions on the 'no-confidence' motion tabled in Parliament by ally Telegu Desam Party (TDP), and the current state of the NDA. 15:34 Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day after an uproar. The ruckus did not allow Speak Sumitra Mahajan to bring in the motion of no-confidence. The House will convene again On Tuesday, April 2. Thats all from our side. Thanks for staying tuned. 12:12 The House stands adjourned for the day. It will convene on April 2. 11:54 The Lower House will convene at noon. 11:07 The Lok Sabha has been adjourned till noon, amidst ruckus. AIADMK MPs were seen raising slogan we want justice, in the well of the House, as soon as it convened. 11:04 The Lok Sabha convened. 08:12 On Tuesday, four parties Congress, YSR Congress, TDP and CPI (M) were expected to move the motion of no-confidence. However, the House was adjourned due to ruckus from AIADMK MPs. Earlier on Tuesday, TRS MPs, who had been protesting in the well of the House for a week, said they would allow the motion to be brought in. 08:09 Good morning! The blog will track the happening from the Lok Sabha. The Opposition parties are expected to move the motion of no-confidence, again. 13:58 The four parties are expected to move the trust vote again tomorrow. Thats all from our side, for now. Thanks for staying tuned. 12:13 The Lok Sabha will convene tomorrow at 11 am. 12:11 Speaker Sumitra Mahajan reiterated that she wanted to bring in the motion of no-confidence as she was duty-bound. However, the House was adjourned for the day as ruckus continued. 11:33 The Lok Sabha has been adjourned till noon after loud slogans of 'we want justice' were raised in the House immediately after proceedings began today. 10:41 Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu will hold a meeting with representatives of all political parties of the state in Amaravati today. They are likely to discuss future course of action on their demand for special category status. 10:15 In what can be seen as a positive sign for the Opposition, reports suggest that the TRS have agreed to let the Lok Sabha function and that its MPs would not protest in the well of the House. However, it remains unclear if the AIADMK would do the same. 10:13 The lower House did not function as planned last week. Due to constant ruckus from MPs belonging to TRS and AIADMK, who were protesting in the well of the House, the Speaker had to adjourn the Lok Sabha repeatedly. 10:12 Last week, TDP as well as YSR Congress tried to move the motion of no-confidence one day after the other. Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said that she is duty-bound to bring in the motion. However, she said that the vote would be possible only if there was no ruckus in the House. 10:10 The Lower House will convene for the first time since Friday. The House had a scheduled holiday yesterday. 10:09 Good morning! This blog will track happening from the Lok Sabha. Congress, Telugu Desam Party (TDP), YSR Congress and now the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) are set to move the motion of no-confidence against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in the Lok Sabha, as the proceedings begin at 11 am today. 15:42 YSR Congress and Congress have also submitted documents moving the motion of no-confidence against the NDA government. The Lok Sabha will convene on Tuesday, March 27, at 11 am. That's all from our side. Thank you for staying tuned. 11:23 The Rajya Sabha has also been adjourned till Monday after TDP MPs stormed into well of the House over the special status for Andhra Pradesh issue. Remember, the motion of no-confidence can only be moved in Lok Sabha, not in the Upper House. 11:08 The proceedings of Lok Sabha opened with ruckus and was immediately adjourned till 11 am. 11:03 The Lok Sabha has convened. 10:52 TDP MPs have continued their protest in Parliament premises regarding a special status issue. 09:37 The Lok Sabha is expected to convene at 11 am. 09:21 Reports suggest that the Telugu Desam Party has sought support from TRS and AIADMK to let the House function and move the motion of no-confidence. TRS and AIADMK have been protesting in the well of the House for the last few days, creating ruckus that has resulted in constant adjournment. 09:19 The two parties have been attempting to move the motion for the last 3-4 days. However, constant ruckus in the Lower House forced Speaker Sumitra Mahajan to adjourn the House every day. 09:18 Good morning! This LIVE blog will track the latest developments from the Lok Sabha where the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the YSR Congress are expected to move the motion of no-confidence, again. 12:18 The Lok Sabha has been adjourned till tomorrow. 11:20 The Lok Sabha has been adjourned till noon. 10:58 After adjournment yesterday, YSR Congress YV Subba Reddy wrote to Lok Sabha Secretary General and gave him notice to include motion of no-confidence in the list of business for today. 10:57 Yesterday, the House convened at 11 am and was immediately adjourned to 12 pm as the ruckus continued. At noon, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan slammed the protesting MPs for creating a ruckus, but had to adjourn the House for the day, again. 10:50 Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the YSR Congress are set to move the motion of no confidence against the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government today, again. 13:53 The motion of no confidence is likely to be move in the Lok Sabha tomorrow. That's it for now. Thanks for staying tuned. 12:41 YSR Congress YV Subba Reddy has written to Lok Sabha Secretary General and has given notice to include motion of no-confidence in the list of business for tomorrow. 12:11 The House was adjourned after continued ruckus. Speaker Mahajan said that she would not be able to take up the motion of no confidence if the ruckus continues. 12:09 Speaker Sumitra Mahajan has adjourned Lok Sabha for the day. The House will convene again on Thursday. 11:09 Minutes after convening, the Lok Sabha was adjourned again. The House will meet next at 12 noon. 09:26 Amidst ruckus in the Lok Sabha yesterday, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said that she is duty bound to bring in the motion of no confidence moved by TDP and YSR Congress, before adjourned the House for the day. 09:25 YSR Congress issues whip, orders MPs to be present Jaganmohan Reddys YSR Congress has issued a whip to its Members of Parliament (MPs), ordering all of them to be present in the Lok Sabha today. They will be moving the motion of no confidence, again when the House convenes at 11 am. 09:21 Good morning! This blog will follow the latest happening from Parliament where Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and YSR Congress are expected to move the motion of no confidence, again. 15:31 YSR Congress is expected to move another motion of no confidence in the Lok Sabha tomorrow and TDP is expected to follow suit. That's it for now. Thanks for staying tuned. 12:46 YSR Congress YV Subba Reddy has written to Lok Sabha Secretary General, giving notice to include the motion of no-confidence in the list of business for tomorrow. 12:18 Following ruckus, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan has adjourned the Lok Sabha for the day. The House will convene at 11 am on Wednesday. 12:15 Speaker Sumitra Mahajan says that she is duty bound to bring in the motion of no confidence moved by TDP and YSR Congress. 12:10 Lok Sabha has convened again. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is addressing the House over the death of 39 Indians in Iraq, amidst chaos. 11:48 Rajya Sabha has been adjourned for the day after ruckus in the House. 11:10 The Lok Sabha has been adjourned till noon after chants of 'We want justice' echoed in the House, immediately after proceedings began for the day. 10:38 Andhra Pradesh CM and TDP Chief Chandrababu Naidu has asked party MPs to coordinate with members of the Opposition, media reports suggest. 09:02 Recap: Yesterday, both TDP and YSR Congress moved the motion of no confidence. Home Minister Rajnath Singh, on behalf of the government said that they were willing to face the trust vote and debate about it. Speaker Sumitra Mahajan however said that she cannot allow any such vote to happen unless the ruckus in the House stops, as it will make counting of votes difficult for her. 09:00 The motion of no confidence was to be moved on Friday and was postponed to for yesterday after the Lok Sabha was adjourned early then. Yesterday, again, the Speaker adjourned the Lok Sabha early after ruckus in the House. 08:57 Despite all efforts from Chandrababu Naidus TDP and the YSR Congress Party, the NDA seems to have enough numbers to succeed against any no confidence motion. 08:54 A key member of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the Shiv Sena said yesterday that it will abstain from voting when the motion of no confidence is moved today. Shiv Sena has 18 MPs in the Lok Sabha. 08:51 Good morning! This blog will continue to track the latest developments from the Parliament where two Andhra Pradesh-based parties Telugu Desam Party and YSR Congress Party are expected to move the motion of no confidence, again. 16:03 TDP and YSR Congress are expected to move another motion of no confidence in the Lok Sabha tomorrow. 15:10 Shiv Sena has said that it will abstain from voting in the motion of no confidence. In the party mouthpiece Saamana, Shiv Sena has said, "The TDP wants to bring in the no-confidence motion for its personal political reasons and not for any 'nationalist' reason". "In 2019, there will be a blast of resentment that is prevailing among masses today. That time, a no-confidence motion will be passed with a complete majority," the Sena said. 13:08 Members of Parliament from TDP and YSR Congress will be skipping lunch hosted by Lok Sabha speaker as they are upset with their no-confidence motion not being taken up, news reports suggest. 12:49 YSR Congress Member of Parliament YV Subba Reddy has moved no-confidence motion against the government for Tuesday. 12:14 Home Minister Rajnath Singh said before the Lok Sabha was adjourned that the government is willing to face the no-confidence motion. Singh also said that the government was ready to debate the motion. 12:11 Lok Sabha has been adjourned until tomorrow after ruckus. Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said that she would not be in a position to count the votes because of the noise inside the parliament. 12:09 Lok Sabha has convened, following adjournment. 11:59 DMK leader MK Stalin has said in the Tamil Nadu assembly, Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu to put pressure on Central government, has gone for no confidence motion, for the welfare of their state. I ask this (Tamil Nadu) Government to support TDP's no confidence motion. 11:24 Addressing TDP minority wing members, Andhra Pradesh CM and TDP Chief Chandrababu Naidu has said, You have always been supportive of TDP, but you were not happy that we allied with BJP. We have been working for welfare of Muslims. We thought as an NDA member, BJP will do justice to the state, but nothing happened. We waited for four years, but of no use. Even in the last budget justice was not done, Naidu added. It was TDP and not YSRCP who responded on Triple Talaq Bill. I told BJP leadership that criminalization of triple talaq was not correct. I was the first to oppose it, Naidu added. 11:16 The government has however expressed confidence that the notices, even if they are admitted, will be defeated given its strength in the Lok Sabha. The current strength of the Lok Sabha is 539 and the ruling BJP has 274 members, more than the majority mark of 270, and enjoys the support of several allies. With the 16-member TDP quitting the BJP-led NDA, the ruling alliance strength has reduced. 11:08 Recap The YSR Congress was the first to give a notice last week for a no-trust motion after the Centre made it clear that it would not grant Special Category Status to Andhra Pradesh. Not to be outdone by its main rival in the state, the TDP, a long time BJP ally, then decided to break its ties over the issue and brought a no-confidence motion of its own. Both parties have been lobbying with opposition parties for support to their respective notices. A no-confidence motion notice has to be supported by at least 50 MPs to be taken up in the House. 11:06 FLASH | The Lok Sabha has been adjourned till noon due to ruckus. 11:05 YSR Congress YV Subba Reddy has written to the Lok Sabha secretariat to put his notice for the motion in the revised list of business for tomorrow. The TDP has also moved a notice for a no-confidence motion. When their notices were not taken up last week, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar had argued that they could not be due to the House being not in order, with members of several parties raising slogans in the Well. 11:04 TDP, YSR Congress to pitch for no confidence motion notices in Lok Sabha Desam YSR Modi Lok Sabha The TeluguParty andCongress will pitch for taking up their notices of no-confidence motion against thegovernment when themeets today, amid no signs of a let-up in the deadlock in its proceedings. The Enforcement Directorate has evidence suggesting that Gitanjali Gems and Nirav Modi companies routed Rs 2,000 crore back into the country through the hawala route, a senior official who did not want to be named, told Moneycontrol. Gitanjali Gems and Nirav Modi companies are at the centre of a Rs 13,000 crore-plus scam in which Punjab National Bank was defrauded through unauthorised letters of understanding (LoUs). The two jewellery firms had raised money from overseas branches of Indian banks, on the basis of the unauthorised LoUs. The ED says that a part of that money was then brought back into the country. The agency has also found evidence of inter-state money transfers by one of the biggest hawala operators in the country. This operator was very active in a Mumbai-based steel company whose promoters had siphoned off money, and is being investigated by the ED. We are investigating all aspects in this case and the hawala transfer is one such area. Our leads so far will help us further investigate this, the above-mentioned official told Moneycontrol. The agency is also investigating 17 overseas companies which received funds from the fraudulent LoUs issued by Punjab National Bank. Of these companies, five were mentioned in the second FIR of the Central Bureau of Investigation. Representative image Recent solar auctions in Maharashtra and Karnataka received fewer bids than previous year. Low response rate led to repeated postponements. Maharashtras latest 1,000 MW solar auction was postponed for the fourth time as it received bids of only 530 MW. The bid was announced by the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Co Ltd (MSEDCL) in December last year. Also read Government plans to amend solar power bidding norms Similarly, Karnatakas 1,200 MW auction for projects at the Pavagada Solar Park drew only two bids of just 550 MW in the second attempt. The Karnataka Renewable Energy Development Ltd (KREDL) has set March 2 as the second deadline; however, the response rate has been low. Here's why these solar auctions are not shining in India > Imported solar equipment Nearly 90 percent of the solar equipment in India is imported, and developers prefer these equipment as they are 25-30 percent cheaper. This has been a concern for the local solar equipment manufacturers. The government move in January to impose 70 percent provisional safeguard duty on imported solar panels and modules from China and Malaysia put at risk nearly 3,000-MW or Rs 12,000 crore worth of solar projects under implementation. Also read 70% duty may cripple 3-gw solar projects worth Rs 12K crore: Crisil Since 4,000-MW of solar projects were auctioned at low tariffs in 2017, any rise in equipment cost after the 70 percent safeguard duty would crimp the cushion that developers have to service debt, rating agency Crisil had said. > Anti-dumping duty on imports The Directorate of Anti Dumping and Allied Duties (DGAD) has been separately considering another petition from local manufacturers seeking imposition of anti-dumping duty on imports. Initially, developers refrained from bidding in either of the auctions as their bid documents did not include a crucial clause relating to change of law, stating the winning tariff would be renegotiated if any rules relating to the solar segment changed. This would mean that the winning bidder may have to comply to the imposition of either safeguard duty or anti-dumping duty. Also read Govt to introduce stricter quality norms for solar equipment, BIS mark could be made mandatory for sale Maharashtra has still not agreed to absorb the duties, which is why developers are reluctant to bid, said Vinay Rustagi, managing director of solar consultancy Bridge to India told Economic Times. Karnataka's second bid saw few takers, despite the exclusion of change of law provision. Just that single safety net clause is not enough, an industry insider told the paper. > Maximum tariff for bids In case of Karnataka, KREDL has set the maximum tariff for the auction, beyond which, the body refused to consider any bids. The ceiling tariff of Rs 2.93 per unit which KREDL has set is too low, Rustagi told the paper, adding that Karnataka has comparatively low solar radiation and charges at the Pavagada Solar Park are fairly high. Also read Solar installations in India likely to fall 22% in 2018 Solar power tariff dropped further to hit a new low of Rs 2.44 per unit in the auction conducted for Bhadla solar park in May 2017. "In another auction for Bhadla Solar Park 3, solar power tariff touched record low of Rs 2.44 per unit," a senior official had told PTI. This low tarriff, however, is not viable for Karnataka developers as Rajasthans solar radiation is much higher, Rustagi added. current-affairs-trends Data protection law needs to be considered as soon as possible, says Mohandas Pai Law and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today accused the Congress of roping in Cambridge Analytica to manage its 2019 campaign. He questioned whether "the Congress will depend upon data manipulation and data theft to win elections?" Days after Congress President Rahul Gandhi spoke about phasing out veterans and introducing youngsters in key party positions, multiple state chiefs of the party stepped down on Tuesday. The resignations are being seen as a step towards the impending introduction of Gandhis new team in key party positions. Goa Congress President Shantaram Naik resigned from his post on Tuesday, stating that he was inspired by Gandhi's speech at the party plenary on Sunday, about making way for younger leaders. "When Rahul Gandhi went to deliver the speech, he said the stage is kept empty so as to let the younger generation take over the reins. My resignation is to make way for the young leadership to take over," Naik told PTI. Chief of Uttar Pradesh Congress, Raj Babbar, also stepped down while Gujarat Congress chief's office declined Bharatsinh Solanki's speculated exit. On Sunday, delegates of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) authorised Gandhi to appoint members of the Congress Working Committee (CWC). It had been speculated that the new Congress president would take the election route to reconstitute the partys key decision-making body. The Congress party is expected to make sweeping changes in terms of party positions, ahead of the key Assembly elections in Karnataka and a series of state assembly polls in the end of this year. CEO of Cambridge Analytica, Alexander Nix, speaks during the Web Summit, Europe's biggest tech conference, in Lisbon, Portugal, November 9, 2017. REUTERS/Pedro Nunes - RC1CF2B72D80 Cambridge Analytica, the data analytics firm at the centre of a storm for its role in influencing American elections by harvesting Facebook profiles, said it has suspended its chief executive Alexander Nix, pending an independent investigation. The suspension comes after the firm came under fire for obtaining over 50 million Facebook profiles and allegedly using them to help President Donald Trump win elections. BBC Channel 4 had on Monday revealed in an undercover video investigation that Nix claimed the British firm secretly campaigns in elections across the world. This includes operating through a web of shadowy front companies, or by using sub-contractors. Nix is also seen claiming that Cambridge Analytica often bribes, uses sex workers and even finds damaging material on its clients opponents, and discreetly push it onto social media and the internet. In the view of the Board, Mr. Nixs recent comments secretly recorded by Channel 4 and other allegations do not represent the values or operations of the firm and his suspension reflects the seriousness with which we view this violation, Cambridge Analytica said in a statement. The company has appointed Alexander Tayler as acting CEO. Julian Malins QC will be leading the investigation. Cambridge Analytica was reportedly in talks with Indian political parties ahead of the General Elections next year. While no formal deals have been announced, the company, and its use of users private Facebook data has stirred a storm in the US and UK. Facebook chief Mark Zuckerburg has also been summoned by a UK Parliamentary committee over Cambridge Analyticas role. Both companies are under scrutiny following claims by a whistleblower, Christopher Wylie, who worked with Cambridge Analytica and alleges it amassed large amounts of data through a personality quiz on Facebook called This is Your Digital Life, reported BBC on Tuesday. He claims that 270,000 people took the quiz, but the data of some 50 million users, mainly in the US, was harvested without their explicit consent via their friend networks. Mr Wylie says that data was sold to Cambridge Analytica, which then used it to psychologically profile people and deliver pro-Trump material to them, with a view to influencing the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, it further said. The Indian IT industrys woes from its largest market - the United States - just do not seem to abate. A legislation proposed by Democrat Senator Sherrod Brown has now brought the focus on the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry while the US immigration agency has suspended a faster H-1B visa application route. The industry body National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) says that both the actions are unlikely to have a major impact on the IT industry, but has also kept a cautious tone with regard to the long-term effects. A proposed legislation in the US Congress has asked that call centre employees in countries like India should disclose their location and give customers the right to ask for transferring their call to a service agent in the US. Introduced by Democrat Senator Sherrod Brown from Ohio, the legislation also proposes to create a public list of companies that would outsource call centre jobs and give preference in federal contracts to companies that havent shipped these jobs overseas. As of now, it is not clear whether Senator Brown has introduced or intends to introduce a new bill on call centers, as was indicated in recent media reports. We are in the midst of trying to find out specific information, said NASSCOM in a statement. It further added that the industry was naturally concerned by any proposal such as this one that would impose new and unnecessary regulatory burdens on US companies, and on some of the services they acquire from some of our members. On late Tuesday night, the legal immigration agency in the US - the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) - said it has suspended premium processing of the H-1B visas, which are used extensively by the Indian IT industry for transfer of skilled workers to client locations in the US. Premium processing is akin to the tatkaal scheme for H-1B visas. A decision is made on each application within 15 calendar days for an additional fee. This has helped companies to send executives to the US on shorter notice. Last year also, the USCIS had suspended premium processing in April, which lasted until July. While NASSCOM has maintained that suspension of premium processing does not have an impact on the IT industry, experts have pointed out earlier that this means companies will have to factor in a longer processing time for the visas. Last years suspension may have prepared Indian IT companies for this year too, but the USCIS has said that the suspension this year is expected to last until September 10. Asia is a critical battlefield in the global fight to rein in air pollution, registering about 5 million premature deaths each year, delegates at a United Nations conference said on Wednesday, as they urged tougher enforcement of curbs. The World Health Organization (WHO) calls air pollution the greatest environmental risk to human health. About 90 percent of related deaths take place in low- and middle-income countries, most of them in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. "There is a sense that if you're developing economically it doesn't mean that you have to live in a city where you can't breathe the air," Dechen Tsering, the Asia-Pacific director of the U.N. Environment programme, said at the two-day event. "There is also a growing sense that there are technologies, there is financing (to help)," said Tsering, adding that the region was a key battleground in the fight. Air pollution grew more than 5 percent between 2008 and 2013 in more than two-thirds of Southeast Asian cities, the WHO said in a report in 2016. Children are "uniquely vulnerable", said Karin Hulshof, East Asia and Pacific director for the U.N. children's agency UNICEF, adding that about 300 million children worldwide live in areas where the air is toxic. "What we are seeing, more and more, in cities like Ulanbataar, is hospitals full of children suffering from diseases related to air pollution," said Hulshof, referring to a public health crisis in Mongolia's capital caused by toxic smog. Emissions limits are simply not being enforced in Asia, however, said Andreas Kock, managing director at Scheuch Asia, which develops and produces environmental cleaning technologies. "Basically, they are not investing because the pressure is not there," said Kock, who called for efforts to spur industries in Asia to adopt pollution-reducing technology. Major cities, such as Bangkok, need to build comprehensive public transport networks and push citizens to use them, Tsering said, as well as environment-friendly vehicles, like bicycles. That is the aim of Mobike, a bike-sharing smartphone application that allows people to find bicycles and unlock them by scanning a QR code. "In Bangkok, we operate in two locations and we hope to expand in a few months," Sam Nathapong, a representative of China-based Mobike, told Reuters. The companys provincial headquarters will be in Montreal, the city at the epicentre of Quebecs real estate boom, but it will service the entire province. I think the stars aligned in Montreal, continued Girard. All the industries here are doing very well. Its the home base of Bombardier and the aeronomical industry here in general. Also, the video game industry is big here with some serious companies, and we have good universities, so I would say the stars aligned. Unemployment is also very low here and confidence in the market is positive. Girard is lauded as the man to lead TMGs charge into the province. He has represented the Quebec region at Mortgage Professional Canada, being elected a second consecutive term as Treasurer on MPCs Executive Board of Directors. He also has over 30 years experience in the mortgage and financial industries, having spent time at Laurentian Bank and Financial Group. His plans for Canadas largest province are predicated on an aggressive recruitment plan. When you start a company, you need to establish roots, but the strategy will be in line with the TMG philosophy, said Girard. They have good values and vision and my strategy will be to recruit good brokers who have good ethics and integrity." Would you like to receive breaking news notifications from The Post and Courier? Sign up to receive news and updates from this site directly to your desktop. Breaking News Columbia Breaking News Greenville Breaking News Myrtle Beach Breaking News Aiken Breaking News N Augusta Breaking News Click on the bell icon to manage your notifications at any time. Success! Please click the 'Allow' button in the 'Show Notifcations' alert in your browser if one is available. Thank you for signing up! Please enable notifications in your browser and reload the page. FALFURRIAS, Texas On Saturday, March 17, 2018, agents recovered two stolen weapons and foiled a smuggling attempt. Agents assigned to the Sarita Checkpoint were conducting immigration inspections when a Ford Taurus, driven by a United States citizen, approached the primary inspection lane. As agents interacted with the driver, a Border Patrol K9 alerted to the vehicle. A search of the vehicle revealed 45 pills of ecstasy, some marijuana and two loaded handguns. Record checks on the handguns revealed one of the guns was reported stolen out of Universal City, Texas. READ ALSO: Border Patrol seizes over $5 million in narcotics, rescues missing child Later that day, Sarita Checkpoint agents referred a Ford Focus, driven by a United States citizen, to the secondary inspection area after a Border Patrol K9 alert. Inside, agents discovered a backpack with trace amounts of marijuana and a loaded handgun. Record checks on the handgun revealed it was stolen in Pasadena, Texas. Both drivers were arrested. Kendey County Sheriff's Office took custody of the drivers and the stolen property. READ ALSO: Border Patrol agents find human remains at south Laredo ranch In Falfurrias, agents referred a Ford F350 to the secondary inspection area and discovered 50 bundles of cocaine weighing over 130 pounds estimated to be worth $4.1M. The driver was subsequently arrested. Both the driver and narcotics were turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration. The public is encouraged to take a stand against crime in their communities and to help save lives by reporting suspicious activity at 800-863-9382. Students living in the Midland College district wont face changes to tuition and fees this fall. The MC Board of Trustees on Tuesday voted to approve the next academic years costs, which will go up for out-of-district and non-resident students. In-district students will pay $89 per semester credit hour for lower-division courses and $137 per semester credit hour for upper-division courses, which are the same rates as this academic year. Rick Bender, vice president of administrative services, said the college wanted to hold the line next year on tuition and fees, something it isnt always able to do. Currently, were right at the state average, Bender said. Most schools will probably raise their tuition next year, so we hope that keeps us below the state average. But for 2018-19, tuition will increase $2 per semester credit hour for out-of-district students and non-resident students taking lower- and upper-division courses. Bender said MC considered the increase after comparing the college to other institutions and state averages. The increase in tuition and fees will generate an estimated $85,000, according to agenda documents from the board meeting. The recommendation to the board also included continuing to waive the general use fee for all dual-credit and Early College High School students. Another request was keeping the $74 per semester credit hour tuition rate for out-of-district and non-resident dual credit students. Also for 2018-19, general use fees will remain at $25 per semester credit hour, and residence hall costs will not change. But prices for meal plans are going to rise. The 19-meal-per-week plan for fall or spring will increase $50 per semester to reach $1,400. The 12-meal spring interim and summer plans are set to go up by $20 and $25 per term, respectively. We always anticipate an increase from our food service contractor, so were just trying to anticipate what that cost might be, Bender said. In terms of other revenues, the college is awaiting property values but already knew its appropriations from the Texas Legislature would be the same as this year. For expenditures, Bender said the college wants spending to remain steady. Overall, we feel like we have very fair and very competitive tuition rates, and we are just trying to keep them as low as we can, Bender said. Also at the meeting, board members: -approved the purchase of a $59,044 gas kiln from Bailey Pottery Equipment Corp. for the art department. -received presentations about the nursing program and dual-credit academies for Midland ISD students. Tuition and fees per semester credit hour in 2018-19 Lower-division courses In-district - $89 Out-of-district - $141 Non-resident - $183 Upper-division courses (bachelor of applied technology) In-district - $137 Out-of-district - $189 Non-resident - $206 Tim Fischer/Midland Reporter-Telegram Midland Police Chief Steve Henry was placed on paid administrative leave Tuesday morning following a formal complaint, according to a press release from the citys spokeswoman. An investigation into the complaint is being conducted by outside counsel and is expected to take at least 30 days, spokeswoman Elana Ladd said. Deputy Chief Seth Herman will serve as acting chief while Henry is on leave. A deaf advocacy group contends long-standing issues at the Illinois School for the Deaf are hindering students and becoming detrimental to the state schools reputation something those closely connected to the school say is unfounded. The Illinois Association of the Deaf board of directors sent a letter in February to ISD Superintendent Julee Nist detailing its concerns over long-standing issues at [ISD] [that] are irrevocably hindering ISD students learning outcomes and damaging ISDs reputation. The five-page letter to Nist contends that deaf culture and American Sign Language are marginalized at ISD and that there are very visible instances of audism, and oppression of students, parents, staff, educators and the larger deaf community remain the way of business at ISD. Audism is a term used to describe physical, cultural or linguistic discrimination against deaf or hard of hearing people. Nist addressed the concerns of IAD, including the ways in which ISD students are taught. The ISD administration always takes stakeholders suggestions into account; however, we are confident in the educational programming approach that we have chosen for ISD, Nist told the Journal-Courier. The ISD administrative team is responsible for determining the educational curriculum for the students along with input from content area specialists and teachers, Nist said. It is governed through principal classroom observations, teacher self-reflections, along with professional development in order to ensure fidelity of implementation. ISD also complies with state curricula mandates as set forth by Illinois State Board of Education. Curriculum is assessed through local, district and statewide assessment data. IAD President Corey Axelrod said in an email that he had been in communication with Nist. The Illinois Association of the Deaf is appreciative of Superintendent Julee Nists response to our letter identifying the numerous long-standing issues of oppression and audism, many of which predated her arrival at the school last year, Axelrod said. We look forward to the necessary, upcoming conversations between Illinois School for the Deaf and IAD leadership to ensure deaf individuals, including students, parents, educators, alumni and community members, are not subject to audism and oppression at ISD. Nist told the Journal-Courier that there have been no reports of discrimination including audism and oppression at ISD during the 13 months that she has been superintendent of the school. ISD has policies and procedures for employees and students to report any form of discrimination, Nist said. Journal-Courier requests for additional comments from IAD board members, including Axelrod, were not answered. Gwenn Eyer of Jacksonville, the parent of a deaf child who attends ISD, recently spoke about the letter that was sent to Nist. In the 10 years that (her daughter) Valerie has been a part of our family, we have been delighted with the quality of individualized education she has received at Illinois School for the Deaf, Eyer said. Ive always been welcomed as a professional team member at ISD, and as she has gotten older, Valerie has also been directly involved in her educational placement choices and the development of her IEP. I am offended that outsiders in IAD appear to be trying to insert themselves in evaluating and guiding the ISD educational program. Eyer credits ISD for broadening her daughters horizons. Thanks to Illinois School for the Deaf, my daughter is being raised in a bilingual/bicultural environment. She attends ISD full time so she can have interaction with deaf mentors and peers while she interacts with us at home. She has three deaf teachers and three hearing teachers this year. She takes ASL classes daily, along with other core subjects. She has participated in annual ISD summer camps, the state fingerspelling bee, in an ISD computer programming contest and other competitions, and has had the opportunity to travel to Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., for Battle of the Books competition. Eyer said IADs comment that hearing parents dont know what they dont know, also offended her and her husband, Glenn. Glenn and I have degrees in education, I trained foster parents around special education issues for many years, and we are informed parents actively supporting our daughters education We believe that the IAD board may be interpreting the quality of education based on their own personal experiences in the past, rather than current day-to-day operations at ISD. Eyer said IAD should recognize that technology continues to change the face of deafness. Many students these days are choosing to use hearing aids or cochlear implants to enhance their educational experience, to communicate with hearing peers and family members, to listen to music, to play video games, etc., she said. In 2017-18, 89 percent of new ISD students use some sort of hearing amplification, either cochlear implants, hearing aids or a combination of the two, Nist said. The makeup of the student body at ISD has evolved in the more than 175 years ISD been serving deaf and hard of hearing students, Eyer said. The educational experience today is different from even 10 or 20 years ago. Through technology, through innovations in teaching techniques and opportunities in local school districts, deaf education has evolved. Todays deaf students at ISD take higher-level courses through our local junior college, when appropriate to meeting their needs. I want my daughter and every other student at ISD to have every opportunity to move forward to learn and excel in life. The IAD letter to Superintendent Nist repeatedly refers to audism and oppression, but viewing the letter as a parent of a student at ISD, (IADs) approach seems to discriminate against not only some of the parents of deaf students, but also against the individual education needs of many ISD students, the very group theyre apparently trying to represent. Greg Olson can be reached at 217-245-6121, ext. 1224, or on Twitter @JCNews_Greg. The White House seems virtually certain President Trump will meet North Koreas Respected Leader Kim Jong-un somewhere, sometime, despite obvious complications. One is that North Korea has yet to say or breathe a word to anyone in the U.S. administration about the summit. The State Department is still awaiting a message, maybe via North Koreas U.N. mission in New York, about the timing and venue. The abrupt ouster of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in Africa when Trump confirmed he was accepting Kims invitation to get together, complicates the process. Tillerson before he was fired said several steps would have to be taken before the summit was fixed definitely, but we expect to hear something directly from them. Now nobody seems to know what to expect. Tillerson, who was not informed of the North Korean invitation before hearing about it during his travels, had demanded that discussions be held quietly a hint that he was out of the loop in the discussion. But would the State Department be the first to know regardless of whos in charge? In this uncertain atmosphere, Tillersons likely successor, Mike Pompeo, who had been CIA director, has to pick up where Tillerson left off in dealing with the North Koreans. Meanwhile, we have to accept the word from White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders that the North Korean offer was made, and weve accepted. If the North Koreans stick to their promises, she said, the meeting will go on as planned. But what promises and are the North Koreans willing to talk about getting rid of their nuclear program as Trump has demanded? Were continuing to prepare on a number of levels, was all Sanders would say, declining to get ahead on any of these details. Certainly mums the word as far as the North Koreans are concerned. They havent made a single comment in their own state media about anything to do with a summit either with South Koreas President Moon Jae-in, who is supposed to meet Kim in late April, or with Trump, who would meet him in May at the earliest. Does the silence from Pyongyang reflect the desire of North Korean leaders to work out a definite schedule before letting their people know whats going on? Or are the North Koreans waiting until after annual U.S.-South Korean military exercises, due to begin soon after the Paralympics, now going on in the South Korean mountain resort of Pyeongchang, the scene of last months Winter Olympics? South Koreans say Kim is no longer insisting on cancellation of the war games, but North Korea has already denounced them as preparation for invasion against which nukes and missiles are needed for self-defense. If either of the summits were to fall through, the North Koreans would inevitably blame the Americans and South Koreans for plotting for war. At this stage, North Korean rhetoric is crediting Kim Jong-un with having created conditions under which the country can focus on economic development thanks to its success in building up the nuclear program needed to defend the country. The North, of course, shows no sign of willingness to give up its nukes and missiles despite Kims assurances of willingness to talk about all that to Trump. In pursuit of an understanding with North Korea, however, Trump faces another problem. How can he work closely with Americas South Korean ally even as he threatens the South with a vast increase in tariffs on steel and aluminum imports? Analysts question the depth of cooperation between the United States and South Korea while South Korea asks Trump to make the South an exception to his order imposing a 25 percent tariff on steel and 10 percent on aluminum products. The order has also angered American allies and trading partners in Europe, Japan and Brazil, all of which are asking for exemptions. Trump at the outset excluded Canada and Mexico from the tariff increases, a topic to be covered in negotiations on revising the North American Free Trade Agreement that he has repeatedly criticized. The issue of protectionism is inextricably linked to Korea, North and South, since Trump also is targeting the free-trade agreement between South Korea and the United States. President Moon has urged North Korea to negotiate its nuclear program with the United States as almost a condition for South and North Korean negotiations. Like the Americans, he is calling for denuclearization but might not be so insistent if Trump sticks to raising tariffs drastically on Korean products, notably steel. The United States is South Koreas largest foreign market for steel exports while Korean steel imports into the United States rank third after Canada and Brazil. Trump has set out a negotiating position before he gets into negotiations, said Kenneth Courtis, a longtime international entrepreneur who heads several investment firms and sits on the boards of a number of corporations. This year, he predicted at a breakfast in Seoul hosted by SaKong Il, a former finance minister, will be one of instability dominated by talk about protectionism and free trade. Koreans, said Courtis, will have to be more agile, more attentive, all of which will be fascinating for the rest of us. Despite pervasive doubts about North Koreas sincerity, Trump has tweeted, For the first time in many years, a serious effort is being made by all parties concerned but warned against raising false hope while the world is watching and waiting. Donald Kirk has been a columnist for Korea Times, South China Morning Post many other newspaper and magazines. He wrote this for InsideSources.com. This item is available in full to subscribers. Attention subscribers We have recently launched a new and improved website. To continue reading, you will need to either log into your subscriber account, or purchase a new subscription. If you are a digital subscriber with an active subscription, then you already have an account here. Just reset your password if you've not yet logged in to your account on this new site. If you are a current print subscriber, you can set up a free website account by clicking here. Otherwise, click here to view your options for subscribing. Jodan Reyes fire gear View Photos Columbia, CA With all the tables filled in the Cellar Bistro at Columbia College, supporters thanked area fire personnel and opened their wallets to helped future firefighters. The Heroes and Helmets dinner was held recently at the Manzanita Building on the campus in Columbia. Those in attendance paid $60 to be served a four course meal prepared by the colleges culinary class under the tutelage of Chef Don Dickinson to tantalize their taste buds. The servers were students from the schools fire academy. All the proceeds went to the schools hospitality management program and the Jordan Reyes Columbia College Fire Academy Scholarship fund. Reyes graduated from the academy and was a firefighter with the Stanislaus National Forest when he was killed in a motorcycle crash on Highway 108 near Twain Harte in 2011, as reported here. Bruce Cannon, Jordans stepfather, shares how the scholarship fund started, When our son Jordan went through the academy, we saw such a growth in Jordan where he went from really just a young kid to such a fine young firefighter by the time he was finished. Academy graduates must still complete six months of full-time or one year of part-time experience before applying to the state for Firefighter I Certification. Cannon says he and his wife, Faylan, saw first-hand the costs to get a firefighting career going and believe help in funding is key. It began as a small self-funded scholarship. What we did was give $350 dollar to a graduating academy member, states Cannon, who adds, Thats grown into a $1000 scholarship, which we give every spring and fall semester with the help of supporters. One of the things were trying to do is grow the fund for the scholarship so its around forever. A huge supporter of the scholarship is Sonora Fire Chief Amy New as she was a graduate of the academy. Not only does the City of Sonora Fire Department gain something from this program, but all the fire districts in the county gain something, shares New. She explains, Were getting a qualified, trained firefighter out of the academy that can go right into one of our resident programs or internships or as a volunteer. We continue their training in a live environment and theyre out there doing the job of protecting the citizens of this county and hopefully were helping them in getting a career. The scholarship is also funded through the Jordan Reyes Drive For Life Blood Drive held in Sonora the Tuesday before Thanksgiving every year, as reported here. [March 20, 2018] InsurTech Start-up Insurer Selects Majesco Policy for P&C and Majesco Billing on Majesco CloudInsurer Platform Majesco (NYSE American: MJCO), a global provider of core insurance software and consulting services for insurance business transformation, today announced that an InsurTech start-up based in California, selected Majesco Policy for P&C and Majesco Billing on the Majesco CloudInsurer platform to support their launch and growth strategies in a SaaS (News - Alert) model. The start-up will write personal lines (Auto, Home, Dwelling Fire and Umbrella) insurance in California through their agent network. A rapid four month evaluation of vendor options resulted in the selection of Majesco as their strategic partner, based on Majesco's cloud platform maturity and referenceable customers, and well-rounded capabilities for policy, billing, agent access, and data integration with key partners and data service providers. "We are honored to welcome this innovative new start-up to our customer community," commented Ed Ossie, COO for Majesco. "As the insurance industry shifts business platforms in Digital Insurance 2.0, we are excited to be working with new, innovative companies that are aggressively executing strategies to capture these new market opportunities focused on rapid launch. We are committed to making core system platform ecosystems friendly with API-first design, ability to cost-effectively scale in the cloud, and architected for seamless and frequent upgrades. We are excited to be this InsurTech start-up's partner of choice as they begin their journey." Majesco CloudInsurer leverages Majesco's experience with over 35 cloud customers, providing a business platform with broad appeal for all insurers from greenfields, new start-ups and incubators to mid-market and tier one insurers. Majesco CloudInsurer provides a core insurance software platform leveraging Majesco core solutions including Majesco Policy, Majesco Billing, and Majesco Claims. Majesco Policy for P&C provides pre-configured ISO content, including all rates, rules, forms, taxes, fees, and surcharges for 52 jurisdictions (including DC and Puerto Rico), and provides a well-experienced monthly bureau content update service. Together, the preconfigured bureau content and Majesco Bureau and Content Update Services are designed to provide agility, rapid product innovation, and speed to market, enabling insurane companies to introduce new products and reach new markets quickly and cost effectively. Majesco Enterprise Data Warehouse is pre-integrated with the Majesco P&C software portfolio. About Majesco Insurance business transformation is a journey of change and revitalization, a renaissance of Insurance. Approximately 160 insurance companies worldwide in P&C, L&A and Group/ Employee Benefits are transforming their businesses with Majesco's solutions. Our market leading software, consulting and services uniquely underpin the entire insurance value chain and are designed to empower insurers with the agility, innovation and speed needed to meet their transformation opportunities. Majesco's solutions include policy management, new business / underwriting, rating, billing, claims management, distribution management, BI/ analytics, predictive modeling, digital platform with mobile and portal, testing services, cloud services, bureau and content services, transformation services, consulting services and more. For more details on Majesco, please visit www.majesco.com. Cautionary Language Concerning 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. These forward-looking statements are made on the basis of the current beliefs, expectations and assumptions of management, are not guarantees of performance and are subject to significant risks and uncertainty. These forward-looking statements should, therefore, be considered in light of various important factors, including those set forth in Majesco's reports that it files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission and which you should review, including those statements under "Item 1A - Risk Factors" in Majesco's Annual Report on Form 10-K, as amended by Majesco's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements contained in this press release include, but are not limited to: integration risks; changes in economic conditions, political conditions, trade protection measures, licensing requirements and tax matters; technology development risks; intellectual property rights risks; competition risks; additional scrutiny and increased expenses as a result of being a public company; the financial condition, financing requirements, prospects and cash flow of Majesco; loss of strategic relationships; changes in laws or regulations affecting the insurance industry in particular; restrictions on immigration; the ability and cost of retaining and recruiting key personnel; the ability to attract new clients and retain them and the risk of loss of large customers; continued compliance with evolving laws; customer data and cybersecurity risk; and Majesco's ability to raise capital to fund future growth. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as predictions of future events and Majesco cannot assure you that the events or circumstances discussed or reflected in these statements will be achieved or will occur. If such forward-looking statements prove to be inaccurate, the inaccuracy may be material. You should not regard these statements as a representation or warranty by Majesco or any other person that we will achieve our objectives and plans in any specified timeframe, or at all. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this presentation. Majesco disclaims any obligation to publicly update or release any revisions to these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, after the date of this press release or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180320006369/en/ [ Back to the Next Generation Communications Community's Homepage ] Google Maps LITTLEFIELD, Texas (AP) Police in Littlefield, Texas have fatally shot a student suspected of stabbing three people at a community center, including his teacher.. The incident happened about 9 a.m. Wednesday at the Our Place Community Center in Littlefield. Angel Uolla, 18, was taking instruction for his high school equivalency certificate when he repeatedly stabbed his teacher, Norma Jean Bartley, 75, and slashed at two others, according to a statement from the Littlefield Police Department. The suspected Austin "serial bomber" is dead after he blew himself up in his car overnight as authorities closed in, police said. Austin police investigated another suspicious package at an Austin FedEx facility near the airport, a further reminder that authorities don't know what the bomber did over the last 24 hours and whether other bombs remain. Authorities have identified the suspect as Mark Anthony Conditt, 23, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. Gov. Greg Abbott confirmed that the suspect was a Pflugerville resident. Authorities have been present at his home and his parents' home in Pflugerville. Update 9:20 p.m. : Law enforcement authorities have announced an all-clear for Pflugerville downtown residents to safely return to their homes. The investigation continues at 403 North 2nd Street, so residents need to stay clear of the property. Update 7:30 p.m.: Late Wednesday afternoon, investigators confirmed that in addition to the explosives in his vehicle, Conditt also had a loaded pistol in his possession a further indication, they said, that he know that authorities were closing in on him late Tuesday. Interim Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said Conditt taped the confession on his cell phone sometime between 9 and 11 p.m. Tuesday, just before he drove to the motel parking lot in his booby-trapped vehicle. Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said the pistol was found in Conditt's vehicle as part of an evidence search after the explosion that killed the bomber. Update 6 p.m. : In late afternoon press conference with Gov. Greg Abbott, Austin Police Chief Brian Manley says law enforcement recovered what they describe a "confession" left on a 25-minute recording the suspect left behind before he died. Manley said the recording does not mention a motive, but Manley said he considers the recording a confession. "Sometimes we want to assign a reason to irrational acts, but we can't," Manely said. "He described seven devices and we found seven devices. We can account for each and every one of them, Manley added that the nearly 30-minute recording describes the six bombs and the differences between each one. The recording does not mention hate or terrorism, only the "outcry of a very challenged young man talking about challenges in his own life.", Manley said. He said there were indications that suspect recorded the message because he believed law enforcement officials were closing in. "Austin facing this daunting task ... was made easy and possible with the assistance from our federal partners," he said. "This is still an ongoing investigation." Travis County Margaret Moore said she and her office were ready to pursue the death penalty had the bombing suspect been captured alive. Abbot also gave a few comments. He said the around the clock efforts by local and federal officials prevented many more injuries and casualties. "What we don't know is how many more victims there could've been," he said. Update 5:30 p.m. : In an interview, Texas U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security, called the end of the weeks-long bomb scare "a good day." McCaul said the suspects motive is an unanswered question. "They're doing a search of his residence, looking for any writings, electronic devices, communications, anything that can give us any reason as to why he would do something so senseless and tragic. Everybody in Austin is asking that question: 'Why?' We don't really have any clear-cut answers," he said. He called Conditt's personal belongings and social media a "treasure trove of information, and we'll get the answer to that." McCaul said the break in the case came when the suspect walked into the FedEx office. "Prior to that time he had avoided the surveillance cameras pretty well. And we didn't have a clear description of him," McCaul said. " ... when he went into the FedEx, there was a video surveillance camera that took a video of him. He was disguised in a wig, and had latex gloves. He thought he was disguised enough. But we were able to take from that the image of him, and then the image of him getting into the red truck that had been reported through leads in the other bombings. Once we got the license plate, we had the individual's name. And then the individual's name then led us to the cell phone, and then the cell phone can become a location device." McCaul said the suspect had his phone turned off, but when he turned in back on, it sent out a ping, and that's how officers were able to locate him. "That's when the chase happened," McCaul said. "He stopped his car, and they were walking up to it, and that's when he blew himself up." Update 5:20 p.m.: Eddie Harp, who said he has known the family for 15 years, gave a statement on behalf of the Conditt family, outside of Conditt's mother's home Wednesday evening. The home, painted in baby blue trim, had an American Flag hanging on the front porch. "The family is grieved both for their loss, but also for the loss of those affected by these heinous actions," Harp said. "The family's present focus is on dealing with their shock and loss and in cooperating with the police investigation. If you are a praying person, please join us in praying for the families, all who have lost loved ones." Update 4 p.m. : Federal and local authorities held a press conference mid afternoon. Fred Milanowski, special agent in charge for the ATF, said authorities spent several hours combing through Conditt's home included private rooms and locked doors. Milanowski added that federal agents have removed explosive materials and uncompleted devices from Conditt's residence, adding that it will take several hours to process the scene in Pflugerville. "We still have a lot of investigative leads," Milanowski said, declining to comment on motive. Milanowski added that based on the items in the home, the suspect in connected to each bombing. Pflugerville Police Chief Jessica Robledo urged residents to stay patient as local and federal teams continue chasing tips and clearing the scene. "I want to ensure the citizens of Pflugerville and those in adjoining jurisdictions that the reason we evacuated for a five mile block radius was for their safety and to allow law enforcement to do their job," she said. "Soon we're going to shrink that perimeter a few blocks." Update 3:50 p.m. : Late Wednesday afternoon, law enforcement officials in Pflugerville confirmed that bomb-making components had been found inside Conditt's home during a police search. Neighbors said federal agents could be seen removing boxes of items from the home and carefully placing them in trucks through much of the afternoon. Update 2:51 p.m.: By early Wednesday afternoon, authorities had expanded their investigation area around Conditt's home to encompass most all of downtown Pflugerville, as federal agents wearing blue crime-scene booties methodically searched yards and trash cans. "It's now empty. The school is evacuated. All the businesses are closed . . . even the park is closed," said Michael Steele, a nearby resident. Update 1:44 p.m.: Investigators assigned to the case confirmed that Conditt's Google search history showed several additional addresses in the greater Austin area. Those addresses were being checked to determine whether he might have sent packages there, including two homes in Cedar Park that were searched late Tuesday. At least one business addresses in Austin was also checked, the investigators confirmed, but no additional explosives had been found by early Wednesday afternoon. Authorities also said that teams of bomb specialists were at work Wednesday comparing evidence from each of the bombing sites. Initial work showed that each of the bombs were similar in their construction, one investigator said. Update 1:38 p.m.: Investigators detained two of Conditt's roommates, Austin police reported. One was questioned and released. The other is still being questioned. Police are not releasing their names because they are not under arrest. Update 12:53 p.m.: Authorities said they filed a federal criminal complaint and arrest warrant last night against Conditt, charging him with one count of unlawful possession and transfer of a destructive device. Details of the accompanying police affidavit remain under seal. Update 12:37 p.m.: Police have no information indicating Conditt's family had any knowledge of the bombings, Austin Police Det. David Fugitt told reporters. They've been cooperating with investigators, he said, and plan to release a statement later today expressing condolences to people affected by the bombings. Update 12:26 p.m.: At midmorning Wednesday, a room-by-room search was conducted at Austin High School. While school officials would not comment on what prompted the search, law enforcement officials said it was related to the bombing investigation though they would not say whether it was in response to a credible tip. School officials later said the school was cleared. Update 12:19 p.m.: Abbott said investigators are in a "slow, painstaking process" of searching Conditt's home, where they believe he built at least some of the bombs. They hope to find information about a motive, future targets and whether he had help, the governor said. Authorities tentatively identified Conditt as early as last weekend, identifying his cell phone number as present at each of the bombing sites, Abbott and other officials said. His home had been under surveillance for some time as authorities closed in, the governor said. "The information as to how he was able to access all the pieces he needed to create all these bombs" remains a focus of the continuing investigation, Abbott said. "We cannot definitely rule out whether there were accomplices." Update 12:08 p.m.: Gov. Greg Abbott said investigators have verified that the suspect purchased five "Children at Play" signs at a Home Depot in recent days, and that one of those signs was used at the Southwest Austin bombing site where a tripwire was attached to it. He had no information on the other four signs, but investigators told the Chronicle that they are investigating whether he might have planned to use them in future attacks. Abbott said Conditt's two roommates are being questioned by police, and that officials at midday were conducting a "painstaking" search of the suspect's home for additional evidence in the case a cautious process that other investigators said would take hours because of the possibility that the house had been booby trapped. Update 12:04 p.m.: A neighbor of Conditt said he saw authorities take a man into custody earlier today. "He looked like he had just woken up," said Mark Roessler, 57, who lives across the street. He said Conditt and his father purchased the home about two years ago and were working together to remodel it. Roessler said Conditt's father told him he was very excited to have the home project to work on with his son. Roessler even went inside the home a few times to look at the progress, most recently about nine months ago. Roessler also offered Conditt some old furniture from his home. "I had encouraged my son to make a connection with him," Roessler said. Even though that never panned out, Roessler described Conditt as a quiet guy who kept to himself, and would wave at him when doing yard work. He moved into the home about a year ago, Roessler said. "I am still taking it all in," Roessler said. "I have a better chance of winning the lottery than living next door to this guy." Roessler said that at about 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, he noticed the church from down the street on a newscast, with reporters saying they were near the home of the bombing suspect. Roessler said he walked outside to go look at the church when several FBI agents approached him. Agents later asked him to draw a sketch of the home because he had seen the layout. Update 11:40 a.m.: Authorities are evacuating several blocks around Conditt's home. Update 11:38 a.m.: Conditt's father was unaware his son was the suspected bomber when a TV reporter knocked on his door in Pflugerville this morning, KVUE reported. Update 11:28 a.m.: Officials are sending a small robot and dog down the street toward the suspect's home, and a next door neighbor said he was asked to draw floor plans of Conditt's house for the FBI earlier this morning. Update 10:58 a.m.: Austin Independent School District tweeted that authorities were on campus at Austin High School "as a follow-up to the ongoing investigation in Austin. Students & staff are safe. The building has been cleared. We were unable to share info earlier because of direction from state, federal agencies." Update 10:46 a.m.: The Austin Police Department reported that its investigation of a suspicious package at the FedEx facility near the airport is complete and the "scene is secure." There had been a temporary evacuation, and now normal business operations will resume, the department tweeted. Update 10:42 a.m.: Authorities are looking in sheds at Conditt's parents home, according to a KXAN reporter who posted images of officers searching. Update 10:13 a.m.: Conditt attended Austin Community College from 2010 to 2012 but did not graduate, according to spokeswoman Jessica Vess. "He has not attended since that time," she said. "We are working with Austin Police Department to provide any information they need." A long-time neighbor of his mother who asked not be identified said news of the suspect's identity shocked the quiet neighborhood and set off a flurry of texts and emails. "I feel sorry for the family - nobody wants something like to happen," the neighbor said. "Think about waking up in the morning and finding out this is your son. My heart breaks for the family. What drives somebody to bomb people? The whole thing is very unnerving." Update 10:01 a.m.: Television footage shows police tactical teams possibly preparing to enter Conditt's home in Pflugerville. One officer has a gun trained on the home, and officers were heard giving orders to "put your hands up." Earlier: Leads obtained over the last 24 to 36 hours brought police to a hotel on Interstate 35 in the suburb of Round Rock, north of Austin, where they located the suspect in a parking lot. As authorities waited for tactical vehicles to arrive, the suspected bomber drove away and stopped in a ditch, Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said in an early morning press conference. When members of the SWAT team approached, the suspected bomber detonated an explosive device inside his car, Manley said. One officer was knocked back from the blast, and a second officer fired his gun, the chief said. The suspect, now known to be Conditt, sustained significant injuries from the explosion and died, Manley said. READ ALSO: Here's what to do if you find an unexpected package A motive is still unknown, and it is still too soon to determine whether the suspect worked alone, Manley said. All of the explosions in Central Texas since March 2, however, are believed to be connected to Conditt, the chief said. Still, the chief urged caution for members of the Austin community. "Again, this is the culmination of three very long weeks for our community, and throughout these weeks weve talked about the importance of remaining vigilant and looking out for each other," Manley said. "I want to continue that message as we stand here this morning, though, because we dont know where this suspect has spent his last 24 hours and therefore we still need to remain vigilant to ensure that no other packages or devices have been left through the community." READ ALSO: Chance the Rapper weighs in on 'serial murdering' in Texas bombings The latest bombing and death of the suspect caps a month of fear and chaos for members of the Austin community. Austinites have been on edge for much of March as a string of bombings occurred around the city. Before the apparent suicide explosion overnight, five bombs detonated across the central Texas region in separate incidents, killing two. This week's events led police closer to Conditt, and the big break in the case came Sunday evening when the suspect, wearing a blonde wig and ball cap, shipped two packages from a FedEx Office location in Sunset Valley, a community in South Austin, authorities said. From surveillance video and electronic data there, investigators were able to were able to use information he used to make the shipment to determine his identity and eventually his whereabouts. Federal agents combed over the FedEx after determining the exploding package originated there. There was no drop box, Sunset Valley Police Chief Lenn Carter told reporters, so the sender presumably would have had to enter the store, possibly leaving a trail of DNA, fingerprints and imagery. FedEx said it had turned over "extensive evidence" to investigators. Video surveillance and witnesses aided in locating the suspect, Manley said. Investigators said they tracked the suspect down using sophisticated electronic means and other techniques that allowed them to locate him at the hotel. Store receipts also showed suspicious transactions, and a search warrant on his Google search history showed suspicious searches, a high-ranking official told The Austin American-Statesman. Investigators used cell phone triangulation to locate him at the Round Rock hotel, part of them tracking him in the past 24 hours through his electronic footprint. By Monday evening, police had tracked Conditt to a Pflugerville home and determined that he had two vehicles one which they found and one which they had not yet located and had two roommates, at least one of which was interviewed, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said on Fox News. "This was incredible detective work," Patrick said, characterizing the bomber as "an evil person." PREVIOUSLY: Latest Austin bombing could be 'treasure trove' of evidence for investigators Federal law enforcement sources said that while a detailed investigation of the suspects background was still in progress, initial information did not show he had any military service in his background. A long-time neighbor who asked not be identified said Conditt family homeschooled their children and were very religious. "They were always home and every Sunday they used to do this big huge church group," the neighbor said. "I don't know if it was a Bible study or a church service." Five years ago, the suspect's mother celebrated her son's high school graduation on Facebook, lauding his plans for a mission trip ahead. "I officially graduated Mark from High School on Friday," she wrote. "1 down, 3 to go. He has 30 hrs of college credit too, but he's thinking of taking some time to figure out what he wants to do....maybe a mission trip. Thanks to everyone for your support over the years." News of the suspect's identity shocked the quiet neighborhood and set off a flurry of texts and emails. "I feel sorry for the family - nobody wants something like to happen," a neighbor said. "Think about waking up in the morning and finding out this is your son. My heart breaks for the family. What drives somebody to bomb people? The whole thing is very unnerving." Police had earlier speculated that the bomber might have had military ordnance training that gave him knowledge of bomb-building. Fred Milanowski, special agent in charge with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told The Statesman that authorities know when he bought some of the components ... It was fairly recently. Milanowski described the device used in the car as a "significant explosive device," but did not provide any other details to The Statesman. The parking lot where the suspect was found had been swept by technicians and bomb-detection dogs, The Statesman reported. We are fairly comfortable there is (no threat) out in the open there, he said. He did not confirm whether the suspect was staying in the hotel. Conditt is suspected by police in the five bombings that have terrorized Central Texas since March 2. The first two package bombs in East Austin killed father and businessman Anthony House, 39, and 17-year-old musician Draylen Mason, while injuring his mother, all three of whom are black. The third bomb injured Esperanza Herrera, 75, a caretaker at the house of her mother, Maria Moreno, when she picked up the parcel. They are Hispanic. In an attack Monday, a trip-wire bomb triggered by two men walking in a southwest Austin neighborhood, seemed to show the bomber lashing out randomly, calling into question race as a motive. Then parcels sent through FedEx suggested the next bomb could arrive anywhere. Another package blew up after midnight Monday on a conveyor belt inside a FedEx sorting facility near San Antonio, causing minor injuries to one person. A suspicious parcel containing a bomb was later found at a FedEx facility near Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. Both were from the same sender and were connected to the four previous explosions, investigators said. Details about the bombs have been limited so as not to throw off the investigation, Manley said. "As weve said all along, we didnt want to give out specific descriptions of the types of packaging the initial bombs were in because we knew there was the potential that he would change his methods, and that is in fact what has occurred here," Manley said. "We do believe that all of these are related and that he is responsible for these based on the similarities that we have seen in all of the devices and in the evidence were finding from those that did detonate." Echoing a major question that remained unanswered Monday morning, Abbott asked whether Conditt had "a different agenda he was trying to achieve" besides terror. Regardless, Abbott Wednesday morning praised the agencies involved in tracking down the suspected bomber. "This is, from federal to state to local, a quintessential example of a team effort that got to the bottom of this as quickly as possible, to save as many lives as possible," Abbott said. RELATED: Feds saw nationwide uptick in 2016 of bombings and explosions, after years of declines Police developed the suspect over the month but "became very interested in him over the past couple of days," Manley said. President Donald Trump, in his first public comments on the bombings, blamed a very sick individual or individuals and called Austin a great place, a tremendous place. Trump has since commended law enforcement agencies for finding the suspect. "AUSTIN BOMBING SUSPECT IS DEAD," Trump said in a tweet Wednesday morning. "Great job by law enforcement and all concerned!" Mayor Steve Adler said on The Today Show this morning that he and the Austin community are thankful to all law enforcement agencies that caught the suspect. "They are confident that they have someone who has been responsible for these bombs going off and as a community were just really relieved and just incredibly thankful for this army of law enforcement that has been in our community here for the last week or so, Adler said. Authorities had offered rewards totaling at least $115,000 for information in the bombings. Hes a ghost The developments Tuesday showed an escalation and sophistication on the part of the bomber that would continue to challenge investigators, retired law enforcement officials said. The bombers rapidly changing routine was unusual, said David Chipman, a retired special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Usually people evolve over months or years, but this is pretty quick, he said. Thats tough for investigators, because youre trying to predict what will happen next based on whats happened before. But if whats happened before is constantly changing, its really tough. Chipman also noted that the bombers evolution from placing packages, to using a trip wire, to mailing parcels, seems like someone who doesnt want to get caught, but hes taking more risks. Clinton Van Zandt, a former criminal profiler who spent decades with the FBI and helped identify the Unabomber as Ted Kaczynski, said the information from FedEx - including fingerprints, DNA, photographs of him coming and going from the facility and from neighborhood cameras would be a treasure trove and could lead to psychological insights about the killer. A horrible feeling Fear of the next incident has frayed nerves in the trendy capital city. Austin police responded to 420 suspicious package calls between 8 a.m. Monday and 8 a.m. Tuesday, bringing the total number to 1,257 calls since the bombings started. About 7 p.m. Tuesday, reports of an explosion at a Goodwill store in southwest Austin prompted evacuations of a commercial area, including a grocery store, police said. One man in his 30s was injured, but officials said the device was not considered a bomb. Additional details were not available. The investigation into the suspect and his motives will continue, and Austinites and residents of suburbs around the city are being asked to be cautious in case the suspect placed any more explosive devices in the past day, Manley said. "If you see something that looks suspicious, if you see something that looks out of place, if you see something that gives you concern, call 911 and let us know so that so that we dont experience any more tragedies in our communities because weve had far too many over the past three weeks," the chief said. This story contains reporting from Alejandra Matos and Forrest Milburn in Austin; John D. Harden and Keri Blakinger in Houston; and Caleb Downs, Fares Sabawi and Kelsey Bradshaw in San Antonio. Anyone who frequents the three-hour trip from Houston to Austin learns to appreciate the gorgeous scenery and rare opportunity to think. So it comes as no surprise that the Lone Star State is home to one of the country's "quietest" and most scenic routes. A new study by GPS company Geotab says Texas 49 is an isolated stretch of beauty worth the gas. Last April the 7-Eleven chain teased a possible comeback to Houston and area fans were elated to learn that an old reliable was returning. A year later those people are still waiting for their Slurpee fix. RELATED: 7-Eleven chain could soon be returning to Houston It was learned last year that the Irving-based convenience store giant entered into an asset purchase agreement with Sunoco LP. This agreement laid out plans for 7-Eleven to acquire some 1,108 stores in 18 states. "This acquisition supports our growth strategy in key geographic areas including Florida, mid-Atlantic states, Northeast states, and Central Texas," said Joe DePinto, president and CEO of 7-Eleven Inc., in a release at the time. "It also provides 7-Eleven entry into Houston, the 4th largest city in the United States, and a strong presence in Corpus Christi and across South Texas." Sunoco was opting to leave the retail business to focus on the fuel-supply business. RELATED: How Houston dealt with the oil bust in the '80s Parent company Seven & i Holdings Co. Ltd. soon came under fire by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which was concerned that the acquisition would harm competition. This would violate antitrust law and create a monopoly in 18 markets. Seven & i Holdings, in a move to save the deal and play ball with the FTC, sold 26 gas stations in Texas, Virginia and Pennsylvania to Sunoco. Accordingly Sunoco kept the locations in Texas, including the Houston market. In all, the FTC review would exclude 59 Texas stores in the Rio Grande Valley and Corpus Christi. On Wednesday a brand representative for 7-Eleven told Chron.com that at this time they had nothing further to share regarding a Bayou City invasion. This wasn't the first time 7-Eleven teased Houston. RELATED: Claire's reportedly planning to file for bankruptcy Back in 2013 the chain announced it would be coming back to Houston and expanding in Texas, but the 7-Eleven revolution in the Bayou City was slowed by the company's other acquisitions, according to a rep in 2014. From 2011 through 2013, 7-Eleven bought "hundreds and hundreds" of existing properties, mostly in the eastern half of the United States and in Texas. Judging which of these properties would become a 7-Eleven is something that the company holds close to the vest. Craig Hlavaty is a reporter for Chron.com and HoustonChronicle.com. Conference: Senior executives from Nickelodeon will be among the key industry professionals attending the sixth-annual Animation Dingle conference in Ireland later this week.Taking place from Friday 23rd - Saturday 24th March 2018, Animation Dingle brings together industry participants and students to celebrate leading animation from Ireland and around the world. The event is co-founded by JAM Media CEO John Rice and Dingle International Film Festival head Maurice Galway.This years edition will feature panels, workshops, the 2018 International Student Animation Awards and screenings of more than 120 shorts and features.Other industry notables heading to Dingle include executives from Apple, Netflix, BBC, RTE, Turner and Disneyas well as Oscar-nominated director Peter Lord (), Pixar animator Bobby Podesta (), Apples new head of childrens programming, Tara Sorensen (ex-Amazon Studios), L.A.-based creature designer Dan Katcher, who is best known for his dragon design work on HBOs hit series, and Disney Channels EMEA VP of programming, production and strategic development, David Levine.Along with recognizing emerging students, the festival also presents The Murakami Award for outstanding achievement in animation. This year, the award will go to Cathal Gaffney and Darragh OConnell of Brown Bag Films ( Butterbean's Cafe ). Previous winners include Jimmy T. Murakami (), Richie Baneham () and Tomm Moore ().Additional conference activities include five-minute speed pitching sessions, a charity-based sketch competition event entitled The Big Pitcher (where one winning student will be offered a six-month paid internship at JAM Media), and a festival pass to Cartoon Springboard.Animation Dingle, which is funded by Enterprise Ireland and the Irish Film Board, features a one-to-one female to male ratio and a 50/50 ratio of students to industry participants.Below is a list of Nickelodeon's Animation Dingle 2018 highlights. A full conference lineup can be found here Public bodies and broadcasters share information regarding various schemes for short form animated content. The panel will outline the aims and objectives of funds which are available.Chaired by Steve Woods (Cel Division), panelists Alexi Wheeler (Nickelodeon), Teresa McGrane (IFB), Jo Allen (BBC), Pauline McNamara (RTE) will discuss the different funding options out there for anyone looking to make an animated short.Date - Friday 23rd of March 2018Time - 10:00Venue - Dingle Skellig HotelDuration - 45 minutesCHECK OUT THE SPEAKERSCommercial and public service broadcasters share strategies and tell how they can be approached with ideas.Come along to this event where Lynsey OCallaghan (Nickelodeon), Jackie Edwards (BBC), David Levine (Disney), and Vicky Schroderus (YLE) will share their valuable knowledge.Jeremy Dickson (Kidscreen), chairing, will cast out for nuggets from this highly experienced panel.Date - Friday 23rd of March 2018Time - 11:45Venue - Dingle Skellig HotelDuration - 45 minutesStudents take part in 5-minute meetings with industry experts. Pitch your portfolio, your idea, or yourself.Pitch participants in 2018 will include Nickelodeon, Amazon Studios, BBC, Boulder Media, JAM Media, Brown Bag Films, Darrall Macqueen, Netflix, Turner, Apple, Pixar, Lighthouse Studios, Giant, Piranha Bar, Disney Channels and more!HOW TO GET THE BEST OF YOUR 5 MINUTES:Idea Allow enough time to not only pitch your idea but to also get feedback and to answer any queries.Portfolio Select your finest work, something that will make an impact and have a lasting impression, and best represents your work and interests.You Be able to sell yourself within the space of two minutes, leaving enough room for advice, feedback, or questions.This event is open to festival pass holders only and places are limited.This event is open to Students and recent graduates only.Click here to apply.Animation Dingle will host the annual International Student Animation Awards again this year!Animation Dingle looking forward to seeing who their judges pick as the winners in each of their 10 categories. Animation Dingle's external judges this year are: Jessica Kennedy (Nickelodeon), Helen McAleer, Chris Rose (Beano), Sarah Fell (Turner), Sheila de Courcy (Writer/Director/Producer) and Jo Allen (BBC).Click here for a list of Animation Dingle's International Student Animation Awards 2018 nominees. Best of luck to all of of Animation Dingle's nominees! Lynsey has been a part of the Nick U.K Programming Team for 11 years, after joining from BBC Childrens where she worked for five years.She works as Executive in Charge across Nick U.K., Nick International & Milkshake Pre-School properties and has worked on hundreds of episodes for series including:Puffin Rock, The Day Henry Met, Wissper, Lilys Driftwood Bay, Digby Dragon & Jams very own Beccas Bunch (which will launch globally later this year) plus many more.Lynsey also oversees acquisitions deals for the U.K., and sits on Nickelodeons International Programming Council.Alexi joined Nickelodeon in 2010 originally working in acquisitions and programming for Nickelodeon UK before taking a role with the Nickelodeon International team. Since then he was worked his way up from Management level to the position of Vice President, Animation Production and Development.Across Alexi Wheelers career he has produced/executive produced over 250 hours of content aimed at pre-schoolers and 6-12 year olds both in live-action and animation. Alexi is currently focused on the development and production of animated global content for the network and is known for implementing global schemes including the very successful Nickelodeon International Shorts Program.In addition to Lynsey and Alexi, Maria O'Loughlin (Head Writer on Nick Juniors), Jessica Patterson (Storyboard Revisionist and key member of the Art department for, 52 x 11 min series for Nickelodeon US and UK), and Jenna Boyd will be speaking at Animation Dingle 2018. Boyd was SVP of Animation Development at Nickelodeon Animation Studios where she shepherded the breakout hit,and oversaw the global shorts program. Boyd originally joined the Nickelodeon team as an intern, eventually serving as the Executive in Charge of, and later as Vice President of Live Action development.Click here for full information about Animation Dingle 2018. Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business jumped six spots to No. 23 on the U.S. News and World Report's latest ranking of best graduate-level business schools. It's the school's best-ever ranking on this list. The biggest contributor to Rice Business' improved score was an increase in the percentage of graduates employed at graduation and the percentage of graduates employed three months after graduation. A 16-year-old girl was arrested in Vallejo this week in the murder of a 17-year-old Texas boy in a drug deal gone bad, authorities said Wednesday. The girl, who is not being named because she is a minor, was taken into custody Monday after trying to enroll at a Vallejo high school with her father, said Lt. Kenny Park of the Vallejo Police Department. When school administrators looked up her name, a no-bail warrant was in their system, Park said. Authorities arrived immediately and placed her under arrest. The girl was booked at the Solano County Juvenile Hall and is pending extradition to Texas. Authorities had been searching for the girl for nearly four months after the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Larry Anthony Quinn Thomas, of Copperas Cove, Texas. Andrew Sommervold, the girls 21-year-old brother, was arrested Dec. 3 in Pittsburg in connection to the same crime, said Sgt. Kevin Miller of the Copperas Cove Police Department. Sommervold had a previous warrant in the Texas city from January after a home burglary that occurred in October. The fatal shooting involving the girl and others occurred about 10:15 p.m. on Nov. 9 outside of Thomas home in the central Texas city, authorities said. Officers arrived on the scene to find Thomas lying in the driveway with a single gunshot wound to the head, according to court records. Earlier in the day, Thomas and two of his friends met with another man at a local pizzeria and reportedly made plans for Thomas to obtain marijuana. The man then contacted the female juvenile to alert her of the new drug connection and arranged for her to meet with Thomas and friends at his residence, according to court records. Before meeting with the group, the female suspect and her accomplice, 17-year-old Jamiroquai Ejiawoko, concocted a plan to trick the two boys into handing over an ounce of marijuana for $5, according to court records. When Thomas friend discovered their plan during the meeting, he reportedly whipped out a pistol and threatened to kill them. The juvenile and Ejiawoko fled the scene and met with 23-year-old Joshua Vega, Sommervold and several others. The group was upset that a gun was pointed at the female juvenile suspect, according to court records. The girl grabbed Vegas gun and said, Going to kill these mother fers, court records show. Sommervold then took the gun out of her hand, put it in his waistband and left with Ejiawoko toward Thomas residence. When the pair returned nearly 30 minutes later, Sommervold reportedly said he thought he hit someone. Ejiawoko responded, Well have to be on the low for a while, according to court records. Ejiawoko and Vega, both of of Copperas Cove, were arrested Nov. 15 and each booked on a $500,000 bond. Sommervold was charged with murder and booked on a $520,000 bail. His younger sister could be tried as an adult, Miller said. The Coryell County Sheriffs Office declined to comment on how long the extradition process will take. Matthew Busch, For The San Antonio Express-News / For The San Antonio Express-News For more than 25 years, San Antonio restaurant owner Alice Harper has been giving to her neighborhood. Feeding the homeless, employing former inmates, serving on community boards. But when celebrity TV host Mike Rowe showed up at Ma Harpers Creole Kitchen on the East Side recently, it was Harpers turn to share in the grace shes shown so many others. The former Dirty Jobs frontman paid a visit to San Antonio for the latest episode of his Facebook series Returning the Favor, in which he travels the country donating labor, money and publicity to people doing positive work in their communities. RELATED: Food Network star Guy Fieri visits San Antonio restaurants, the Alamo Posing as a film crew shooting a food documentary, Rowe and his team interviewed Harper about her Southern cooking, then lured her out of the restaurant to work some magic behind the scenes. Spoiler alert: After talking to several current and former employees about how Harper hired and helped them after they got out of jail, Rowe and Returning the Favor crew installed a new commercial dishwasher, bought new dishes and silverware and brought Harper back to present her a $20,000 check. Amid a standing ovation, Rowe told a speechless Harper that the show honors people who live as an example for other people to emulate. Harpers long history of philanthropy began when she and her family opened her NAwlins Creole Kitchen on East Commerce Street in 1990. She then moved the restaurant to South W.W. White Road in 2004 and renamed it Ma Harpers Creole Kitchen before settling eventually on North New Braunfels Avenue. RELATED: New food truck park coming to Austin Highway in May God owns this restaurant, she told the Express-News in 2000. He only allows me to the opportunity to run it. Catch new and past episodes of Returning the Favor at facebook.com/ReturningTheFavor. Ma Harpers Creole Kitchen is at 1816 N. New Braunfels Ave., 210-226-2200, Facebook: @maharperscreolekitchen Peter Lumaj, the Albanian-born immigration lawyer from Fairfield who is running for the GOP nomination for governor, told the West Hartford Republican Town Committee this week that he was recruited by the Trump administration. "I was offered a job to become the next ambassador to Albania to represent the United States," he told about 50 people in Town Hall. "I turned it down because I think I can serve the state better than being somewhere overseas serving you." A man told police he fired a gun at two vehicles because he was angry that a woman had humiliated him after he declared his love for her, according to LPD. Alberto Aaron Juarez, 20, was recently arrested and charged with two counts of deadly conduct, criminal mischief and unlawful carrying of a weapon. At about 3:15 a.m. March 9, police responded to shots fired in the 6500 block of Arena Boulevard. A woman stated that about five shots were heard in the parking lot. READ ALSO: Sisters allegedly attack woman with knives in Super Bowl Sunday assault Police said they encountered a gray Ford Ranger in the middle of the street on Crescent Loop. An officer, using a spotlight, saw a man sitting in the drivers seat. Police then noticed the pickup had a large tree branch stuck on the right side of the vehicle. It appeared the driver, Juarez, had left the Arena Gun Club parking lot and had driven over large bushes located next to the driveway, possibly rendering the pickup unmovable, according to police. One of the vehicles in the parking lot, a Toyota Scion, had a broken side mirror resting on the ground. The vehicle also had a scratch apparently caused by a bullet. READ ALSO: Viral photo: Kind stranger saves Texas mom in them middle of Target meltdown A Chevy Malibu parked in front of the Toyota had numerous small holes that appeared to be bullet holes, according to police. Officers also noticed several spent casings from a .45-caliber scattered on the ground. LPD said Juarez admitted that he had shot the vehicles. Police said the handgun used to shoot them was found in the center console of Juarezs vehicle. According to LPD, Juarez told officers he shot the vehicles because he was upset that a woman had rejected him. He said to police that he had been drinking at a nightclub and decided to take out his anger by shooting the vehicles, LPD said. EAST HAVEN More than 100 people from children sleeping on parents shoulders and laps to elders with walkers and wheelchairs came through the doors of Our Lady of Pompeii Church Tuesday and clustered together between the pews to see the relics of Padre Pio . During his lifetime, Padre Pio was known as a mystic with miraculous powers of healing and knowledge, who bore the stigmata, the wounds an individual receives that correspond to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus Christ, according to www.olsjbasilica.org and other sites. Pope John Paul II canonized him in 2002. Some stood in line at the church with their cell phones out, others with rosary beads clutched in their hands. Some whispered a prayer before coming face to face with the relics. Those sitting and in the pews prayed in silence, with their heads bowed and eyes closed, just soaking in the presence of the relics in front of them. Upon reaching the altar, people touched the relics hesitantly, putting their finger first to the relics, then to their lips before making the sign of the cross. Relics are important for the faithful because, in a certain way, it allows them to have a special connection with the saint, said Luciano Lamonarca, president and CEO of the Saint Pio Foundation. Padre Pio, also known as St. Pio, was born on May 25, 1887, in Pietrelcina, Italy, and baptized Francesco Forgione. The future saint entered the Capuchin order at age 15, taking the name Pio, said Lamonarca. Lamonarca said the collection includes both first-class relics, the physical remains of a saint, and second-class relics, items that the saint owned, wore or frequently used. The relics are touring 40 cities in the United States, as well Mexico and Canada, he said. Carol Streeto of East Haven said she wasnt a believer until she went to a church several years ago and touched the relics for the first time. The first time, people were going backward. I thought to myself, Oh my God, I dont believe this, she said. When I got up there, I felt heat on the top of my head, and I got weak. Ever since then, (Padre Pios) been my guardian angel. Streeto said she wasnt supposed to come Tuesday to see the relics due to her back pain, but upon touching the relics, she felt instant relief. I feel things. Everybody does. Hes a miracle man, she said. While Mario Apuzzo of East Haven is a very religious man, he said he came to the church Tuesday to pray for his brother-in-law who has cancer. They said this priest, Padre Pio, was a healer. Thats a big reason I came, he said. He bought several key chains, and upon touching the key chains to the relics on the alter, they became third-class relics. He said he plans on giving them to his brother-in-law and some of the sick residents at Evergreen Woods, a retirement community in North Branford, where he works. We dont have too much to hope for. We have to have a belief that something good is going to come out of life. Hopefully, this is a start, he said. The Rev. Jeremiah Murasso said he is very fortunate to have the relics at the church for public veneration, as it isa wonderful opportunity for people to reconnect with God. Well, its quite a privilege, truly. These are first- and second-class relics. The Church has recognized relics, even going back to the Old Testament, Murasso said. Its not so much as physical miracles that take place, as much as spiritual and psychological, the emotion of healings that take place, the marvels and mysteries of God working in all of our lives. Diane Massimino of East Haven said when her mother was 81, her mother had 6 inches of her intestine removed. Three days later, her mother developed a high-grade fever. Massimino said the doctors believed her mothers sutures had ruptured, and they would have to perform another operation. I went to the Padre Pio shrine in (North Branford) and prayed. Theyre wheeling her into surgery and another doctor looks at the X-ray and says, Hold on, said Massimino. She said the doctors performed more tests and found it was C. diff, a bacterium that is easily treated with antibiotics. For her, Padre Pio saved her mothers life and is the reason her mother is still alive. John Raccio of West Haven said his wife goes to church every day, but its harder for him since he lost his leg six years ago. Despite his hardships, he said he felt blessed as he sat in his wheelchair in the presence of the relics. What was it like? I wanted to cry, Raccio said. CROWMELL It is the great unremembered disaster of the 20th century, a warning of something that very easily might occur again. It is the great influenza pandemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, including 675,000 Americans. Some place the true death toll closer to 100 million people. But today, very few people have ever heard of it. The Cromwell Historical Society hopes to correct that gap in peoples knowledge with a program Monday at the First Congregational Church, 355 Main St. Dr. Patricia J. Checko, who has a masters degree in public health, will discuss The Great Influenza of 1918: What Happened, How It Affected Society and the War and Why It Can Happen Again. The program, free and open to the public, is part of the societys ongoing centennial retrospective series on the impact of World War I on Connecticut and Cromwell. In announcing the program, society president Richard F. Donohue said, Known by many as The Spanish Flu, the influenza epidemic of 1918 killed 675,000 Americans and dropped the life expectancy by 12 years. The flu occurred in three stages that spilled over into 1919. The early stage, in the first part of 1918, wasnt terribly drastic. But then came the catastrophe of the global pandemic in the final quarter of the year. As many as a half-billion people were infected. If, as some scientists and historians contend, 100 million people died, that represented 5 percent of the worlds population, according to an analysis of the pandemic published in Smithsonian Magazine. It is estimated that the flu killed more people in 24 weeks than AIDS has killed in 24 years, and more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century, Donohue said in his statement about the program. In Connecticut, 8,488 people died of influenza from September through December 1918, Donohue said. There was another round of influenza in 1919, but it was in no way comparable to the staggering death toll of late 1918. The flu was infamous for taking the lives of young adults with strong immune systems, Donohue said. That was particularly true of military recruits gearing up to go to Europe to fight in World War I. The history of the pandemic is rife with stories of young, vital soldiers who awoke in the morning with a tinge of the flu and were dead that very afternoon. And then, it suddenly faded away, leaving heartbreak and devastation in its wake. William K. Maxwell, the former fiction editor for The New Yorker, movingly describes that heartbreak in his novel They Came Like Swallows, a fictional version of the trauma he suffered when his mother died in the pandemic. In the 100 years since the pandemic struck, scientists have been able to understand the gene sequence of the virus, in part by digging up the bodies of flu victims buried in the permafrost of Alaska, an effort that forms a significant portion of The Flu, a book by Gina Kolata. But, as Richard Gunderman notes in a Jan. 12 post at Smithsonian.com, Severe influenza epidemics tend to occur every few decades. Experts believe that the next one is a question not of if but when. For the foreseeable future, flu epidemics will remain an annual feature of the rhythm of human life. As a society, we can only hope that we have learned the great pandemics lessons sufficiently well to quell another such worldwide catastrophe, Gunderman wrote. It is against that background that Donohue urged interested persons to Come and learn how it happened, its effect on society and the war, and why the threat of pandemic influenza is still real and feared today. And by the way, have you had your flu shot? Refreshments will be served. While the event is free, Donohue said the society welcomes donations. If all goes as planned, Deer Park's new City Hall building may open for public use on May 8, city officials say. "The (staff's) move to the new building is planned for the weekend of May 4-7," city public works director Bill Pedersen said. "However, state-level inspections required prior to move-in could slightly impact this timeline." The new $5.53 million facility on San Augustine Street, was built after the city determined that repairing the 40-year-old current City Hall, located just to the east, would not be cost-effective. In addition to extensive repairs, "we would have had to absorb the expense of running our operations from another location for a year or more during construction due to mold and asbestos-abatement issues," City Manager James Stokes said previously. The May 8 opening date is contingent on the move-in process finishing on schedule, Pedersen said. The builder is Construction Ltd. of Houston. The new building will encompass 25,000 square feet and two stories - with an additional story and 5,000 more square feet than the current City Hall. The city estimates the new building will be in service for more than 50 years. In the new building, the city secretary's office, human resources, public works, permitting, central collections and utility billing will be housed on the first floor, Assistant City Manager Gary Jackson said. Offices on the second floor will include administration, engineering, information technology, public works administration and finance. The building will also include a council chambers. About 50 employees will be based from the building. The new City Hall will also be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act and include additional safety features, such as pass keys. It will also have enhanced audio and visual technology in council chambers, said Jackson, and will include additional conference rooms and common areas. "On behalf of the Deer Park City Council, I would like to express how excited we are to see the new City Hall nearing completion," Mayor Jerry Mouton said. "With the updated technology and features included in the new facility, our staff will be even better equipped to serve the residents of our community." French President Emmanuel Macron had a message for President Donald Trump when the two spoke on Wednesday on the delicate subject of confronting Russia. As the lone European figure who has seemingly cracked the code of communicating with Trump, Macron spoke for other European powers when he stressed to Trump that Europeans are outraged by a nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy living in Britain. The major European powers are planning a coordinated response and want American support, starting with a firmer condemnation of the attack than Trump has offered so far. The result of that call was the clearest statement to date from the White House that Trump not only blames Russia for the March 4 attack but also plans to respond. "The Presidents reiterated their solidarity with the United Kingdom in the wake of Russia's use of chemical weapons against private citizens on British soil and agreed on the need to take action to hold Russia accountable," a White House statement on Wednesday's conversation said. Macron - also an unconventional political figure - has used a mixture of flattery and man's-man bravado to become Trump's favorite European leader and a counterpoint to Trump's affinity for strongmen, including Russian President Vladimir Putin. Macron scored the first Trump invitation for a state visit, to be held next month, and speaks to Trump often. The invitation was a mark of how Macron has come to play the role that German Chancellor Angela Merkel often played for former president Barack Obama and former British prime minister Tony Blair played for former president George W. Bush - confidant, whisperer, teller of hard truths. It is all the more notable that Macron's nation is second to Germany in European economic might and second to Britain in its tight military alliance with the United States. And that Macron himself has sharply criticized Trump over policies including the withdrawal from the Paris climate accord. Also remarkable is the fact that Trump made his pledge to Macron rather than to British Prime Minister Theresa May, on whose soil the attack occurred. May is now the leading advocate for a unified response condemning Russia for what she considers an outrageous violation of international law and a national security threat. Trump last spoke to May on March 13. Although he had told reporters ahead of time that he would "take that as fact" if May told him that Russia was behind the attack, the White House statement that emerged later in the day did not go that far. "President Trump agreed with Prime Minister May that the Government of the Russian Federation must provide unambiguous answers regarding how this chemical weapon, developed in Russia, came to be used in the United Kingdom," the earlier statement said. "The two leaders agreed on the need for consequences for those who use these heinous weapons in flagrant violation of international norms." Since then, the signals have been mixed. The Trump administration levied its first sanctions on Russia over election interference in the United States - something Trump had previously declined to do - while Trump was widely criticized for making a congratulatory call to Putin Tuesday for his March 18 reelection. Trump's unenthusiastic relationship with May was on display at their last meeting, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January. "The prime minister and myself have had a really great relationship, although some people don't necessarily believe that, but I can tell you it's true," Trump said, as May smiled stiffly beside him. French officials, meanwhile, did not dispute reports last month that Macron helped to put the bug in Trump's ear about attending Davos as a sort of Nixon-to-China gesture from a protectionist to the free-traders. "That's a good statement. I hope they mean it," former senior State Department official Dan Fried said of the White House statement about the Macron call Wednesday. "It would have been far better had it been coming out of the phone call between the president and President Putin but I'll take what I can get and good for Macron for raising it," said Fried, a Europe specialist at the Atlantic Council. "It's an excellent argument for leaders making a good personal relationship with President Trump so they can put things like this to him." The Trump-Macron call Wednesday was their second in 11 days. The two seem to have developed a rapport since their first firm-handshake meeting; Trump liked the Bastille Day military parade he attended in Paris so much that he's calling for a similar procession at home. By contrast, Trump never called to congratulate Merkel on her fourth term, sealed earlier this month with formation of a coalition government. The two did speak on March 1 about Syria and Russia after an extraordinary five-month gap in their direct communications. Obama was in touch with Merkel weekly for much of his presidency, and his administration considered her the central figure in European fiscal and political stability. A challenge for traditional U.S. allies in Europe is how to confront Russia without antagonizing Trump, who admires Putin and rails against the special counsel investigation into Russian interference that he calls a "witch hunt." Trump's affinity for Putin - Trump has called the Russian "very smart" - appears to endure despite the abysmal state of U.S ...Russia relations. Trump came into office pledging to try to repair ties, but Putin's decision last year to expel U.S. diplomats was widely interpreted as a signal that he had given up hope that Trump could deliver. As The Washington Post reported Tuesday, briefing materials prepared for Trump before his call with the Russian president warned him "DO NOT CONGRATULATE" Putin on his reelection; Trump did so anyway. Trump defended himself in a series of tweets Wednesday, essentially making the argument that Russian cooperation can further U.S. interests. "I called President Putin of Russia to congratulate him on his election victory (in past, Obama called him also). The Fake News Media is crazed because they wanted me to excoriate him. They are wrong! Getting along with Russia (and others) is a good thing, not a bad thing," Trump wrote. Trump had mused Tuesday that he and Putin would probably soon meet. They have not done so this year. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., meanwhile, said Wednesday that he has invited Macron to address a joint session of Congress on April 25, when he is in Washington for the state visit. Washington Government efforts to protect state and local elections from Russian cyberattacks in 2016 didn't go far enough, leaders of the Senate intelligence committee said Tuesday as the panel released recommendations to safeguard against foreign meddling in the 2018 primary season that's already underway. Federal warnings last time did not provide enough information or in some cases go to the right people in state and local governments, the committee's leaders said, though they reiterated that there was no evidence votes were changed. Russian agents targeted election systems in 21 states ahead of the 2016 general election, the Homeland Security Department has said, and top U.S. intelligence officials have said they've seen indications Russian agents are preparing a new round of election interference this year. The committee's recommendations include urging states to make sure voting machines have paper audit trails and aren't capable of being connected to the internet. Senators also are pushing for better communication among the various U.S. intelligence agencies and federal, state and local governments about cyber threats and vulnerabilities in computer systems. The committee's recommendations preview an election security report expected to be released in full in the coming weeks. It is the first of four reports the panel plans to write in its investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the panel, released the recommendations ahead of a Wednesday hearing examining attempted hacks on state election systems in 2016 and the federal and state response. The proposals, in large part, echo those made by cybersecurity experts and address concerns raised by state and local officials. Even with Republican and Democratic support, it's unclear if the recommendations will translate into legislation. Burr said his panel doesn't have jurisdiction over the issues, so another committee would have to write any bills. Burr said the committee's investigation revealed that the Russian cyber effort exposed "some of the key gaps" in the security of the nation's election infrastructure. He said the committee wants to maintain state control of elections, but the federal government should be doing more to help. "Clearly we've got to get some standards in place that assure every state that at the end of the day they can certify their vote totals," he said. Senators are also urging state and local election officials to take advantage of resources provided by the Homeland Security Department, such as comprehensive risk assessments and remote cyberscanning of their networks to spot vulnerabilities. Overall, experts say far too little has been done to shore up those vulnerabilities in 10,000 U.S. voting jurisdictions that mostly run on obsolete and imperfectly secured technology. As of last month, just 14 states had requested risk assessments and 30 had asked for remote cyberscans of their networks, according to Homeland Security officials. But even that was straining resources, since many of those risk assessments have not been completed. The First China (Ningbo) Global Experts Summit takes place in Beilun district of the city of Ningbo in East China's Zhejiang province on March 20. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com] The First China (Ningbo) Global Experts Summit took place in Beilun district of the city of Ningbo in East China's Zhejiang province on March 20. The event focused on the world's cutting-edge technology and China's industrial demands, creating a platform where global talents and technologies seek cooperation and achieve win-win results. More than 370 top experts from 20 countries including the US, Russia, Germany and Italy, as well as heads of financing and venture capital institutions, attended the summit. A total of 239 high-tech projects from a variety of industries such as aerospace, integrated circuits and new materials sought cooperation and financial support through roadshows and matchmaking events at the summit. Xia Mingjiu, deputy director of China's Bureau of Foreign Experts Affairs, said at the summit that China values the introduction of overseas talents and the active role overseas experts have played in China's modernization construction. Xia spoke highly of Ningbo and its Beilun district's efforts in introducing overseas talents during his speech at the summit. Xia Yingqi, vice-chairman of Western Returned Scholars Associations, an organization of China's returned scholars from European and American countries, believes that this summit serves as a platform for cooperation between top talents, projects and capital. He hopes that overseas students will seize this opportunity to show their advanced technologies and projects at the event and establish long-term cooperation relations with local enterprises. Riccardo Trichilo, president of CSMT Center, an Italy-based technological service center, confirmed in his speech that Italian enterprises are eager to find high-quality partners among Chinese enterprises. He said that this event will surely give a major push to the understanding of Chinese and Italian enterprises and promote the emergence of new commercial opportunities, research projects and companies. The summit also witnessed the signing of nine key projects involving talent exchanges and the aerospace and semiconductor industries. Xia Yingqi, vice-chairman of the Western Returned Scholars Associations, speaks at the First China (Ningbo) Global Experts Summit on March 20. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com] Fulshear City Council unanimously approved an employment agreement with Jack Harper on March 20, making him the Fulshear city manager effective April 9, 2018. Harper, a native Texan, has more than 25 years of municipal experience. He currently serves as an assistant city manager with the City of Waco, a role he has held since 2014. Prior to that, he served as city manager of Hillsboro and has also worked in Lubbock, San Antonio, Abilene and Stamford. Harper is active in both the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) and the Texas City Management Association (TCMA). "We are excited to name Jack Harper the City of Fulshear's next city manager and we look forward to welcoming him officially to the City of Fulshear family April 9," said Fulshear Mayor Jeff Roberts. "Mr. Harper brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the city, and a dedication to the communities that he serves as an active member of civic organizations and a passionate public manager dedicated to the provision of public services at the highest level. We are grateful to Strategic Government Resources and Mike Tanner, for conducting a top-notch search for the city's next leader, and we are confident that Jack will help enthusiastically grow Fulshear in the image we all envision!" "I am truly humbled to be appointed City Manager," said Harper, "and I am grateful to the City Council for the confidence they have reposed in me. Julie, Jake and myself are excited about moving to Fulshear, and in being a part of the community." Harper holds a bachelor of arts in political science and a master of public administration from Texas Tech University. Additionally, he is a Credentialed Manager through the ICMA, a Certified Public Manager (CPM), and a graduate of numerous leadership and public executive institutes. He is also a Certified Emergency Manager (CEM) through the International Association of Emergency Managers, and a Texas Emergency Manager (TEM) through the Emergency Management Association of Texas. He is certified as both a Housing Economic Development Finance Professional and an Economic Development Finance Professional through the National Development Council. "I am very excited about the opportunity to work for the City of Fulshear," continued Harper. "The city is in the midst of rapid growth and change, and has many ongoing projects. I look forward to meeting everyone, and in working with the City Council, city staff, and all stakeholders in working together to best position Fulshear for the future." HODMEZOVASARHELY, Hungary - Even by the standards of a country that has swung hard toward one-party rule, this small city on the fertile plains of southern Hungary is a pro-government stronghold. Or so it seemed. Then came the city's mayoral election, when all expectations were upended. Faced with a likely rout by the Fidesz Party of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the long-feuding opposition parties banded together and put forward a single candidate. A month later, he sat triumphant in his classical-art-filled city hall office and said there's no reason his victory can't be replicated in an April 8 parliamentary vote seen by Orban's critics as a potenital moment for Hungarian democracy. "The story of this town can be a parable for the country," said the newly elected mayor, Peter Marki-Zay. "If there's an alliance of opposition voters, the people against dictatorship, then there's hope. And if there's hope, turnout will be high and Fidesz will be defeated." But with just weeks to go before the election, the sort of coordination on display in Hodmezovasarhely remains elusive elsewhere in Hungary. The opposition parties may agree that Orban represents a grave threat to civil society, rule of law and free expression less than three decades after Hungary threw off the chains of communism. But they can't agree on a strategy for stopping him. The fractured nature of the opposition leaves a clear path for Orban to claim a third consecutive landslide victory and consolidate control in a country where his party faces diminishing obstacles to absolute power. "The opposition parties are still acting like they don't understand what's at stake," said Marton Gulyas, who has been trying to encourage them to cooperate through his grass-roots Country for All movement, to little avail. "Another Fidesz majority would be a disaster for the country. But there's still no strong and recognizable alternative for those who are fed up with Fidesz." Polls show Fidesz winning about 50 percent of the vote nationwide. The rest of this country of 10 million is split among four main opposition parties, none of which polls higher than the teens. Under Hungary's complex electoral system, half the vote for Fidesz could be good enough for a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly - wide enough to pass virtually any legislation, including changes to the constitution. Fidesz has promised a law that civil society groups have said would severely limit their ability to operate. Critics say Fidesz has already used its overwhelming majority from the past eight years to tilt the electoral playing field decisively in its favor, gerrymandering districts and commandeering supposedly independent offices of government, along with much of the media. The opposition parties could still offer a serious challenge on April 8 by teaming up and agreeing on a single candidate in each of the country's 106 electoral districts. Such a deal could be negotiated right up until the final day before the vote. Doing so, however, would require the parties to put aside ideological differences, personal mistrust and powerful financial incentives to keep all their candidates on the ballot. (Parties receive funds based on the number of votes they receive.) On the surface, at least, the ideological divisions alone would seem insurmountable. The two largest opposition parties come from opposite sides of the political spectrum - the far-right Jobbik Party and the left-of-center Socialists. Jobbik has a toxic reputation in mainstream European political circles, owing to a history of anti-Semitic and racist remarks by its leaders. But as Orban has steered Fidesz to the far-right - his pitch for reelection centers on warnings of the coming "Muslim invasion" and denunciations of the Hungarian-American financier and philanthropist George Soros - Jobbik has shopped for new political real estate. "We gave Viktor Orban a lot of his ideas," said Marton Gyongyosi, Jobbik's foreign policy point man. Rather than tack further right, the party has tried to stake out ground in the center, apologizing for its prejudicial past and even moving toward the left by emphasizing calls for economic justice and equal pay. The conversion would seem to make possible what was once unthinkable: cooperation between Jobbik and three smaller left-of-center parties, including the Socialists. Gyongyosi said there was appetite, in theory, to team up against the common enemy of Orban. But he also said Jobbik was wary of associating itself with the Socialists, a party that has not recovered from the taint of corruption acquired during eight years in power before being tossed out by voters in 2010. The ambivalence goes both ways, a reality on display during a desultory rally of a few thousand Socialist voters and their allies in Budapest for the country's independence day last week. "Jobbik is not part of the solution. They're part of the problem," Agnes Kunhalmi, a Socialist lawmaker from Budapest, told the crowd gathered in front of the city's famed Freedom Bridge. Minutes later, she was contradicted by the party's own candidate for prime minister, Gergely Karascony, who said he would reluctantly do a deal with Jobbik if it meant a better chance at defeating Orban. "We have to cooperate with everyone, even with the devil," he said. The rally's relatively sparse crowd stood in contrast to the masses of supporters mustered by Fidesz, which gathered well over 100,000 people outside the parliament for its own independence day rally. In his speech, Orban barely mentioned the opposition except to call it "anemic"; he trained his fire instead on Soros and other supposed agents of foreign influence. The rally was an important show of strength for Fidesz after the humiliation of the mayoral vote in Hodmezovasarhely last month. The city of 45,000, which was Hungary's fourth largest in the late 19th century and still boasts grand public buildings from a long-gone era of affluence, had been considered a rock-solid Fidesz bastion. One of Orban's top lieutenants, Janos Lazar, was once the mayor, and he remains the preeminent local power broker. But Marki-Zay's successful insurgent candidacy showed that Fidesz support may be softer than it appears. An economist and a father of seven children, the 45-year-old had been a Fidesz supporter himself, and had never run for office. But he said he grew disenchanted with what he described as the party's corruption and cronyism. Apparently he wasn't the only one. On election day, a record 62 percent of eligible voters cast ballots, and Marki-Zay defeated the heavily favored Fidesz candidate by 16 points. "People are not happy in this city - or in the country," he said. "They're tired of the intimidation and the corruption." Or perhaps a more prosaic explanation was at work, but one equally worrisome for Fidesz. People could simply be ready for a change. "Everyone deserves a chance," said Ferencne Kiss, an 82-year-old retiree, as she strolled the city's quiet lanes. "We've been under Fidesz rule for some time now. Let's see what the new guy can do." --- The Washington Post's Gergo Saling contributed to this report. --- Video Embed Code Video: Hungary is in the midst of a divisive election that will decide if the country's anti-immigrant prime minister, Viktor Orban, gets a third straight term in office.(Griff Witte,Jason Aldag/The Washington Post) Embed code: Trump Bay Street, a New Jersey luxury apartment tower part-owned by Kushner Cos., received a $200 million loan from Citigroup, according to two people familiar with the deal. It's a coup for Kushner Cos. and their partner KABR Group, which need the funds to repay a construction loan that came due in September, as well as individual Chinese investors who put $50 million in the building through a visa-for-investment program. The companies had trouble finding lenders last year after Jared Kushner's sister traveled to China, Bloomberg reported at the time. Kushner Cos. is owned by the family of Jared Kushner, son-in-law and senior adviser to President Donald Trump. The company and its partners have come under scrutiny as they do deals while Kushner undertakes U.S. policy. Danielle Romero-Apsilos, a Citigroup spokeswoman, said the Bay Street loan wasn't discussed at a March 2017 White House meeting attended by CEO Mike Corbat and Jared Kushner that was highlighted in a New York Times story. Citigroup issued a $325 million loan for a separate Kushner development later that month. Corbat was unaware that the bank was in the process of closing a real estate loan to the Kushner Cos. venture when he met with Jared Kushner, the bank said in a Tuesday letter to Democratic senators. Kushner Cos. and KABR declined to comment. None of the firms shared the terms of the loan, or otherwise described how they compare to market rates. The Kushner Cos. website notes that it refinanced the property, located at 65 Bay St. in Jersey City, for $240 million. The Trump name is used under license for the property and neither Donald Trump nor the Trump Organization own a stake in Trump Bay Street, according to the building's website. Kushner Cos. owns 12.5 percent of the property, including a 2 percent stake held by Jared Kushner through a trust, Citigroup said in the letter to lawmakers without naming the project. A person briefed on the financing confirmed that it referred to the Bay Street property. About a quarter of Trump Bay Street's $194-million development was funded with loans from the the EB-5 visa program that grants wealthy foreigners green cards in exchange for investing in U.S. projects. Last May, Jared Kushner's sister went to China to pitch potential investors on another development, but the effort drew scrutiny because the presentations featured a photo of Donald Trump and mentioned her brother's ascension to the White House. Afterward, some large U.S. banks shied away from refinancing the 50-story Trump Bay Street because of the property's connection to Kushner and the visa program, a person familiar with the talks told Bloomberg at the time. A leading AIDS researcher, who is well respected for his clinical work but has no experience running a governmental public-health agency was named Wednesday to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement that Robert Redfield, the 66-year-old virologist and physician, has "dedicated his entire life to promoting public health and providing compassionate care to his patients, and we are proud to welcome him as director of the world's premier epidemiological agency." Azar said Redfield's scientific and clinical background is "peerless" and noted that during his two-decade tenure at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Redfield made "pioneering contributions to advance our understanding of HIV/AIDS." He also praised his more recent work running a treatment network in Baltimore for HIV and hepatitis C patients, which Azar said prepares Redfield "to hit the ground running on one of HHS and CDC's top priorities, combating the opioid epidemic." RELATED VIDEO: Study: 1 in 6 Americans Binge Drink Weekly The statement did not address Redfield's once-controversial positions on HIV testing during the first decade of the AIDS crisis - which a top Senate Democrat cited Monday in asking the White House to rethink its choice. The decision had been expected since Redfield emerged late last week as the front-runner to become CDC director, a job for which he also was considered when George W. Bush was president. The position does not require Senate confirmation, and Redfield, a professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and a former Army researcher, is expected to be sworn in and take up his job in a few days. Redfield's main focus during his career has been chronic human infections, especially HIV/AIDS. He heads clinical care and research at the medical school's Institute of Human Virology, which he founded with Robert Gallo, who co-discovered HIV as the cause of AIDS. He also oversees a major program providing care to more than 6,000 patients in the Baltimore-Washington region, and more than 1.3 million patients in Africa and the Caribbean as part of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR. He served on Bush's Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS from 2005 to 2009 and on advisory councils at the National Institutes of Health in earlier years. Maryland Democrats praised Redfield's selection. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings called him a "deeply experienced and compassionate public health physician." And former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, who sits on the virology institute's advisory board, said, "It's terrific to have someone who has been such a caring doctor, who has really treated patients and knows what they're going through." Redfield, who has five children and nine grandchildren, has seen the devastating impact of the opioid epidemic from close experience, according to Townsend. "He knows how difficult it is to get treatment, how hard it is to find a halfway house," she said, adding that Redfield has told her that hospitals should devote 10 percent of their budgets to treat addiction. But the policies he supported decades ago have raised deep concern among some AIDS advocates because they were not considered sound public health approaches to the epidemic. The critics believe they also stigmatized those who were infected and feared being fired - and losing their health insurance. During the 1980s, as the chief Army AIDS researcher, Redfield was a strong supporter of mandatory HIV screening for the military before effective treatments were available. Recruits who tested positive were barred from military service. He was also closely linked to a controversial and unsuccessful effort in Congress in 1991 to require HIV testing of health-care professionals who perform invasive procedures, after a young woman, Kimberly Bergalis, contracted the virus from her dentist. The bill was introduced by Rep. William E. Dannemeyer, a California Republican who was one of the most conservative members of Congress. In the early 1990s, while at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Redfield was accused of misrepresenting data about the effectiveness of an experimental AIDS vaccine that he was supporting. The vaccine ultimately failed. An investigation cleared Redfield of scientific misconduct charges. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., ranking member on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, focused on Redfield's "lack of public health credentials and his history of controversial positions regarding the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDs" in her letter to the White House. His pattern of "ethically and morally questionable behavior leads me to seriously question whether Dr. Redfield is qualified to be the federal government's chief advocate and spokesperson for public health," Murray wrote. During the same period in the 1990s, Army investigators also criticized Redfield's close relationship with a conservative AIDS organization that strongly supported the vaccine and had received scientific information about it "to a degree that is inappropriate," according to a 1993 Science article based on an extensive Army report. Investigators recommended that ties between Army researchers and the group "be severed so there is not an appearance of endorsement or favoritism," Science reported. The organization, Americans for a Sound AIDS/HIV Policy, was founded by Shepherd and Anita Smith, a politically connected Virginia couple who supported abstinence-based AIDS prevention. The group later became the Children's AIDS Fund International and was among the first to receive federal funds to conduct HIV prevention work under the Bush administration's faith-based initiative. Redfield, who early on was chairman of the organization's advisory board, continues to serve on its board. James Curran, who led CDC's efforts against HIV/AIDS for 15 years, said Redfield should be commended for his dedication in the fight against the virus, recalling the difficult circumstances for his research during the 1980s and 1990s. "The disease itself was new. He was dealing with homophobia and stigma. They were big barriers, especially in the military," said Curran, dean of the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. "He has remained committed to this problem, and I give him credit not only for working among the poorest of the poor in this country, but also the poorest of the poor people in the world." While Redfield's supporters point to his strong background in infectious disease and global health, public health experts inside and outside the agency say one of his biggest challenges will be his limited governmental public health experience, especially involving emergency responses. Many had hoped the administration would pick Acting Director Anne Schuchat, 58, who has nearly three decades of experience at CDC and is highly regarded within the administration and on Capitol Hill. Azar thanked Schuchat for stepping in as acting director, the second time she has done so in the last year. The Center for Science in the Public Interest said Redfield's appointment would be "disastrous." "What one wants in a director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a scientist of impeccable scientific integrity," the group said in a statement Wednesday. "What one would get in Robert Redfield is a sloppy scientist with a long history of scientific misconduct and an extreme religious agenda." With infectious disease outbreaks on the rise, the CDC plays a critical role in detecting, preventing and controlling their spread. The Atlanta-based agency is responsible for issues including the world's most dangerous organisms, chronic diseases such as diabetes and obesity, and birth defects caused by the mosquito-borne Zika virus. "You want someone leading the organization who has been tested," John Auerbach, president and chief executive of Trust for America's Health, a public health nonprofit, said late last week. "You wouldn't want them to spend a year of their lives learning about the agency they're overseeing. In a crisis, we need someone who can hit the ground running." Former CDC director Tom Frieden noted the critical role of the agency in protecting the health of Americans. "I wish Dr. Redfield well and hope he will be an effective advocate for both funding and the scientific independence of CDC, while earning the trust and support of its world-class doctors and scientists," said Frieden, who now heads a nonprofit, Resolve to Save Lives, a global initiative to prevent epidemics and reduce cardiovascular disease. The job heading the country's foremost public health agency has been vacant since Jan. 31, when former Georgia public health commissioner Brenda Fitzgerald resigned after serving only half a year. She was unable to divest from "complex financial interests" in a "definitive time period," according to an HHS statement. Fitzgerald had also purchased shares in a tobacco company shortly after becoming CDC director. Azar accepted her resignation two days after he was sworn in. Azar was HHS general counsel under President George W. Bush and is among former Bush administration officials now at the department and in the White House who already were familiar with Redfield. The researcher was also a candidate for CDC director in 2002, but Julie Gerberding was chosen from within the ranks. Redfield, whose current annual salary is $645,676, will be taking a significant pay cut to join the agency. The upper end of the basic salary range for director is about $190,000. Former director Tom Frieden earned about $207,000. Colleagues say Redfield's passions are his work and his faith. A devout Catholic, Redfield and his wife live in the Roland Park neighborhood of Baltimore, a few blocks from his church. Alice Crites contributed to this article. The Supreme Court appeared likely Tuesday to roll back parts of a California law regulating hundreds of antiabortion clinics known as crisis pregnancy centers. But the justices gave no clear indication of whether they would strike down the core of the law, which requires the clinics to inform their clients about the availability of abortions. In the one-hour argument, two conservative justices, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, expressed agreement with the clinics view that the law violated their freedom of speech. Taking a contrary view, liberal Justice Stephen Breyer noted that the court has upheld other laws requiring abortion providers to advise patients of harms allegedly caused by the procedure. Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Californian and moderate conservative who has cast the deciding vote in past abortion cases, criticized a provision of the law that requires clinics offering reproductive care, with no doctor on their staff, to inform clients they are unlicensed by the state. Noting that the disclosure provision applies to advertising, Kennedy said it would require a clinic that has paid for a billboard that simply said Choose Life to also include the notification. This is an undue burden (on free speech) in that instance, and that should suffice to invalidate the statute, Kennedy said. But he was silent about the central issue in the case: whether the state can require medically licensed clinics that offer pregnancy testing or related services to post notices saying California makes reproductive health care, including contraception and abortion, available at little or no cost. The notices are attributed to the state, not the clinics, and must include the phone number of the county social services agency. The law, sponsored by Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, took effect in 2016. Crisis pregnancy centers, many of them sponsored by religious organizations, advertise themselves as offering a range of pregnancy-related services, but do not provide abortions and advise their clients not to terminate their pregnancies. According to a legislative staff analysis of Chius bill in 2015, there were about 2,500 crisis pregnancy centers nationwide and at least 228 in California. A federal appeals court upheld the law in 2016, saying the state had a legitimate interest in providing patients with accurate information about constitutionally protected medical services like abortion, and was not forcing the clinics to promote abortion. But the clinics said the state was requiring them to advertise a procedure they opposed. California took aim at pro-life pregnancy centers by compelling licensed centers to point the way to an abortion, attorney Michael Farris of Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian nonprofit representing the clinics, told the court Tuesday. He was joined by the Trump administrations Justice Department, whose attorney, Jeffrey Wall, said the state was requiring the clinics to make disclosures about services that would violate their most deeply held beliefs, without any showing by the state that it truly needs to compel speech rather than speak its own message. Gorsuch sounded the same theme, saying the state could inform patients directly. Why should the state free-ride on a limited number of clinics to provide that information? he asked. Joshua Klein, a deputy solicitor general in state Attorney General Xavier Becerras office, replied that the court has allowed states to require health care professionals to provide information to patients for example, the informed consent laws that have sometimes included warnings about the dire consequences of abortion. Breyer seemed receptive to that argument. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, he said. If a pro-life state can tell a doctor you have to tell people about adoption, why cant a pro-choice state tell a doctor, a facility, whatever it is, you have to tell people about abortion? Alito voiced a different objection, that the law had been gerrymandered to apply almost entirely to the antiabortion clinics while not requiring hospitals or private doctors to post the same notices. Considering all the exemptions, you get a very suspicious pattern, he said. Justice Elena Kagan, a member of the courts liberal wing, raised the same issue, saying it would be a serious issue if California was aiming its regulations at some speakers whose speech we dont like. Klein, the states lawyer, replied that the law was targeted at women who seek free care for pregnancy, not at any particular viewpoint. The case is National Institute of Family and Life Advocates vs. Becerra, 16-1140. A ruling is due by the end of June. Thousands of consumers statewide are experiencing sticker shock at the pharmacy this year after increases in deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses for employer-sponsored insurance, forcing some to choose between their health and their finances. Since 2003, drug costs in Connecticut have increased faster than prices across the nation, reports the nonprofit Connecticut Health Policy Project. The advocacy group also found that Connecticut residents spend more per person on prescriptions than residents in all states except Delaware and that rate is rising much faster than in other states. According to the State Comptrollers Office, the total net costs of prescription drugs in the state employee health plan rose 29 percent, from $257.6 million in 2014 to $332.3 million in 2017, with diabetes drugs the most expensive therapeutic class. Some of the companies to hike prices on dozens of medications by more than 9 percent this year include Allergan, Insys Therapeutics Inc., Horizon Pharma Ltd., and Teva Ltd, according to Jefferies LLC, a New York-based investment advisory firm. Shame does not work. Competition does not work. Whats left? Governments saying what theyre going to pay for the drug, said Jill Zorn, a senior policy officer at the advocacy organization Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut. The states are acting because the federal government isnt. States are stepping in to control costs. Earlier this year, the Connecticut State Healthcare Cabinet recommended, among other measures, the creation of a Drug Review Board authorized to investigate drug manufacturers pricing. The cabinet also called for transparency in business practices and for consumers to be charged an amount based on the negotiated price of a drug. Maryland last year passed legislation that prohibits price gouging on essential off-patent or generic drugs. Also last year, California approved legislation requiring drug makers to provide a 60-day notice if they raise prices by more than 16 percent in two years. Nevada was first among states to pass an insulin drug pricing transparency bill. Pharma companies are quick to note that most net price increases have been modest. For Pfizers U.S. biopharma business, as of the third quarter of 2017, the weighted average net selling price increase year to date was 3 percent, said Sally Beatty, a Pfizer Inc. spokesperson. But Piyush Bansal, a senior analyst with Frost & Sullivan, points out that Pfizer, which maintains a large R&D facility in Groton, hiked U.S. prices for 91 drugs by an average of 20 percent in 2017. And for Big Pharma, price increases have outpaced the demand. Maintaining profit margin was the key driver behind price increase rather than demand-supply, Bansal said. Legislators say they hear complaints from constituents about drug costs weekly. Drug prices are way too high, and there are laws on the books that protect drug companies, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said. I want to change those laws, to stop drug companies from overcharging and to lower costs by allowing Medicare to negotiate directly with drug companies. Adding to patients woes, pharmaceutical companies have extended patent rights on blockbuster drugs to limit competition. For example, the patent for Humira from AbbVie Pharma expired in 2014. But the company filed multiple patents surrounding Humira, from dosage tweaks to delivery methods, avoiding competition from generic products. Insurers, too, are driving patients to ration their medication. Dr. Prasad Panthagani, an ophthalmologist in Bloomfield, said elderly patients frequently accidentally spill a few drops of glaucoma medication, such as Alphagan or Travatan, when applying it to their eyes. If the bottle finishes before 30 days, they run out of the medicine, he said. Patients forego dosages for the remaining period since the insurance company wont pay. If there is no optimal control of intra-ocular pressure, patients could lose their eyesight. Without insurance, a 5 ml, 30-day supply of Alphagan was priced at $208; Travatan at $440. Nora Duncan, state director at the American Association of Retired Persons , said seniors are also affected by insurers switching plan formularies in the middle of the year. HB 7123 is a good bill on trying to limit how much can change. There is a lot of opposition from the pharmaceutical lobby; but that information should stay consistent through the calendar year, Duncan said. The bill is before the legislature for consideration. The Connecticut Health Policy Project data show that net pharmacy spending minus rebates from Connecticuts Medicaid program tripled from 2000 to 2017. After rebates, Medicaids pharmacy costs decreased from $542 million in 2015 to $465 million in 2017, a drop of over 14 percent, said David Dearborn, spokesperson at the Connecticut Department of Social Services. But for most consumers, prices cannot drop soon enough. Todd Grays troubles began when the deductible under his insurance plan shot up from $3,000 last year to $7,300 in 2018. Along with it, his blood sugar rose to more than 300 milligrams per deciliter as he experienced blurred vision and edginess, culminating in an episode of yelling at work. The 55-year-old diabetic had skipped his medication in January after sticker shock at the pharmacy. Walgreens said I had to pay $1,100 for one months supply of Humalog. an injectable insulin, he said. I didnt have the money, so I didnt buy it. Humalog does not have a generic equivalent. A concerned colleague did some research and found Humalog online at Blink Health for $360. I pre-pay and pick it up at Walmart, said Gray, who also shells out $350 per month for Lantus, another diabetes drug without a generic alternative. Part of the ire against Big Pharma is that the numbers simply dont add up. For example, it costs just under $5 to produce a 10 ml vial of analog insulin, according to the Type 1 Diabetes Defense Fund. Eli Lillys launch price for Humalog in 1996 was $21, and subsequent competition from other insulin makers did not drive down the price. Instead, manufacturers began to increase prices in tandem and Humalog pharmacy price starts at $500, according to GoodRx website. Despite the savings with Blink Health, Gray does not inject himself with Humalog three times a day as prescribed. I do it once a day, or sometimes twice, so it can last longer. His blood sugar is still not controlled. This year was tough, he said. Next year will be catastrophic if things dont change. Sujata Srinivasan is a Connecticut Health I-Team writer. This story was reported under a partnership with the Conn. Health I-Team (c-hit.org). WASHINGTON - Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman kicked off his U.S. visit with talks and lunch at the White House, where President Donald Trump displayed posters showing recent Saudi weapons purchases from the United States, saying that "we make the best equipment in the world." The $12.5 billion the Saudis were paying for planes, tanks, ships and munitions shown in the posters was "peanuts" for the oil-rich kingdom, Trump joked before cameras in the Oval Office. "You should have increased it," he told Mohammed. The poster's list of finalized sales fell far short of the $110 billion figure that Trump cited during his visit to Riyadh last May, and some were initiated and approved during the Obama administration. Additional deals might still come to fruition. The prince earlier visited the Capitol to meet with top congressional leaders, many of whom raised concerns over the Saudi-led coalition's role in the war and massive humanitarian crisis in Yemen, and U.S. support for the Saudis. "We talked about the importance of our relationship, no doubt," Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a floor statement after his own session with Mohammed. "But we strongly, strongly pushed back on what is happening right now in Yemen and asked them to take strong corrective actions." Lawmakers have sharply criticized the war Saudi Arabia has waged with U.S. support over the past several years in Yemen, in which at least 1,000 civilians have been killed in bombing attacks. Sen. Robert Menendez, N.J., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called for a political solution. "We also talked about the enrichment that they're pursuing and some of the concerns that existed there," Corker said, touching on a disagreement over whether Saudi Arabia should insist on retaining its option to enrich domestic uranium resources under a nuclear cooperation agreement. The deadlock over an agreement has been an obstacle to the ability of firms using U.S. material or technology to bid on construction contracts for a pair of electricity-producing reactors the Saudis want to build. In group meetings on Capitol Hill, Mohammed spent more than two hours in 20- to 30-minute sessions with the congressional leaders and heads of national security committees from both sides of the aisle. Vice President Mike Pence and H.R. McMaster, the president's national security adviser, planned dinners in Mohammed's honor, as did the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Khalid bin Salman, the crown prince's brother. Mohammed was expected to meet with Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, who are in charge of the administration's effort to forge an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, as well as CIA Director and secretary of state-designate Mike Pompeo, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. In addition to being the heir apparent to the Saudi throne, Mohammed is also his country's defense minister. When they met in the Oval Office, and later in the Cabinet Room, Trump was effusive in his praise for Mohammed. "We really have a great friendship, a great relationship," following what he said were "strained" ties during the Obama administration. He recalled counterterrorism agreements made with Islamic nations during his visit last May to Saudi Arabia and said "the relationship is probably stronger than it's ever been." Mohammed, in response, described the bilateral relationship as "really huge and really deep." Picking up on Trump's theme, he said that Saudi-U.S. ties had created "more than four million jobs in the United States of America, directly and indirectly," as well as jobs in Saudi Arabia. Trump said that the Saudis were "also footing a big part of the bill for defense" in "the whole Middle East" but made clear that he expects Riyadh to do more.Referring to the nearly completed battlefield defeat of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Trump said that U.S. involvement was "coming to an end in that part of the world. And we'll be able to get out of certain areas that we've wanted to get out of for a long period of time. And other countries can handle it." In a December telephone call, Trump asked King Salman to contribute $4 billion to reconstruction and stabilization efforts in parts of Syria cleared of the Islamic State and thought he had gotten a Saudi commitment, The Washington Post reported last week. But most of Trump's public comments surrounding the visit Tuesday concerned what the Saudis have spent in the United States and the additional expenditures Trump is expecting. Trump has cited a variety of numbers in the past about U.S.-Saudi commerce, and Tuesday was no exception. The president said "we talked about $400 billion worth of investment, of which we've already invested and seen invested $200 billion to our companies, to various other places, and people that make things." Those figures contradict figures released by the White House and are several times larger than figures provided by the leading companies involved in purchases and investments both countries make in each other's economies. --- The Washington Post's Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report. WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump announced two weeks ago that he would hold an unprecedented summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. On Tuesday, Trump reminded us just how awry that meeting could go. The Washington Post is reporting that Trump was given key talking points for his call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday and that he disregarded just about all of them. He was not supposed to congratulate Putin on his allegedly unfair and undemocratic reelection win - his notes even had "DO NOT CONGRATULATE" in all caps - and yet he did. And he was supposed to condemn Russia's alleged role in the nerve-agent attack on a former Russian spy in Britain, and yet he did not. The episode crystallizes Trump's tendency to eschew basically any expert guidance - even on issues of huge import. That certainly has implications for U.S. relations with Russia and for efforts to combat Russian interference in U.S. elections. On the latter, Trump has declined to take a harsh tone and has even suggested that he believes Putin's denials. But, more immediately, it has huge implications for Trump's impending meeting with Kim. Trump's penchant for off-the-cuff diplomacy and policymaking has been on full display during his presidency. High-profile meetings with nuclear-weapon-wielding dictators with questionable states of mind, though, tend to require intensive preparation and adherence to scripts. Experts generally tell you that you should go into such meetings knowing how they will turn out, one way or another. Failure to anticipate and successfully guide the conversation could have dire consequences, both from propagandistic and militaristic standpoints. As I wrote when the Kim meeting was announced: "None of that describes how Trump has conducted himself as president; he has usually been the antithesis of all that. On issue after issue, whether immigration or guns or that Oval Office meeting with Russian leaders, he has proved he can't stay on script. In fact, he often doesn't seem to bother even studying the script. Trump regularly appears unfamiliar with the policies he's discussing, changes his mind within days or even hours, and makes decisions that haven't been thoroughly vetted. "Given that this whole process started with Trump's apparently impromptu decision to grant Kim a meeting, it doesn't seem likely Trump is planning to bring a more studied and judicious approach to it. And that will give those charged with preparing him for the meeting weeks and weeks of heartburn." The poisoning of former Russia spy Sergei Skripal and his adult daughter, Yulia, is a particularly pregnant omission from Trump's call. Britain has concluded that Russia was at least complicit in the attack - which mirrors the poisoning of another ex-Russian agent in Britain, in 2006 - and the United States has joined France and Germany in agreeing with that conclusion. The situation has led to perhaps the most severe British sanctions on Russia since the Cold War. But given that Trump has essentially accepted Putin's denials of interference in the 2016 election, there is little guarantee that he will actually press Putin on the Skripal poisoning. Trump's rhetoric has been pretty measured thus far, and he has apparently ignored his national security team's desire to get him to broach the topic directly with Putin. As with the conversation about Russian interference, it seems Trump simply doesn't want to press Putin in the way those around him wish he would, and he apparently can't be persuaded to abide by even a very basic strategy. There is basically no reason to believe that he wouldn't freelance in a similar way with Kim - whether because of chutzpah or a complete inability to stay disciplined. And whatever hope there might be for a breakthrough from the meeting with Kim, this should severely temper everyone's expectations. With verbal imagery of stars and constellations of dreams and their realizations local students and state leaders in higher education celebrated the inauguration Tuesday of University of Texas at San Antonios sixth president, Taylor Eighmy. There were steel drummers, Bollywood dancers and mariachi performers leading up to the inaugural speech, which Eighmy mostly dedicated to UTSA students. He asked them to stand in the crowd of about 500 at the universitys convention center before quoting Johann Wolfgang von Goethe as images of the 19th century German writer appeared on PowerPoint screens around him: Use no small dreams, for they have no power to move the hearts of men. RELATED: S.A. CEO steps down under pressure from board Make sure we help you realize your dreams, Eighmy told them. We have a promise to all of you that while youre here while we have you in your busy, busy schedules that you find this moment in time to make sure you have that genesis of the dream you need to have for the rest of your life. Marcus Thomas, the Student Government Association president, compared Eighmy to a certain Spurs player. Dr. Eighmy is the sixth president. For our Spurs fans, Manu Ginobili was the Sixth Man, Thomas said. He came off the bench and gave the right plays just when we needed him. Ive always felt a part of his (Eighmys) team from the very beginning. See photos from the inauguration above and read more about it at Expressnews.com Austin law enforcement officials are asking the community to remain cautious after the suspected bomber in this month's attacks apparently blew himself up early Wednesday morning as police approached his vehicle. Authorities said Mark Anthony Conditt, 23, was the person who dropped off or mailed at least five packages that exploded when touched or opened. One was triggered by a trip wire. A sixth package was found at an Austin FedEx facility, but was handled by authorities. Courtesy of the City of Seguin. A man was found shot to death in a vehicle early Tuesday on the West Side. Police were dispatched for reports of a shooting at about 4:30 a.m. in the intersection of Southwest 26th and San Fernando streets, according to preliminary information from a San Antonio Police Department report. RELATED: Clues shape C. Texas bomber's profile When they arrived, officers said they found the man dead with what appeared to be a gunshot wound. The vehicle he was inside had crashed into a tree, police said. The man has not yet been identified by the Bexar County Medical Examiners Office. A 2-year-old girl was run over by a pickup outside a West Side apartment. The girls family was moving into the apartment about 9:55 p.m. Monday in the 100 block of St. Christopher Walk when the accident occurred, according to San Antonio police. RELATED: Drunk driver crashed into utility pole, causing power outage on North Side, police say Investigators said a family member was attempting to bring the truck closer to the building by backing it up when the girl was run over, investigators said. She was then taken to University Hospital by EMS, police said. An updated condition was not available Tuesday evening. The suspected bomber behind this month's attacks in Austin and Schertz, was home-schooled, attended Austin Community College and had little presence on social media. Mark Anthony Conditt was a 23-year-old living in Pflugerville before he blew himself up early Wednesday morning after sending at least six package bombs since March 2, causing five explosions that killed two people and injured four, police said. A San Antonio mother who went missing for more than a year after allegedly taping her daughter to an ice machine was found in Raleigh, North Carolina, according to a report from The News & Observer. Michele Roode Boyd, 43, was arrested Monday by WakeMed police and accused of being a fugitive from justice. RELATED: 73-year-old man accused of sexually assaulting child in New Braunfels Boyd has been sought by San Antonio police since Nov. 25, 2016. On that morning, officers were called to a Walgreens store on Rigsby Avenue when an employee reported a child was found taped to an ice machine, authorities said. The girl's mouth was taped shut and her hands were taped behind her back, according to the report. Then, Boyd went missing. Her family feared that Boyd experienced a mental breakdown. They said she began acting strangely after she and her husband separated, according to a previous mySA.com report. READ MORE: S.A. nurse, mother went missing on Thanksgiving, family seeking help to find her Boyd was reportedly found in North Carolina after she was hospitalized at WakeMed Hospital in Raleigh. She allegedly refused to give nurses her name for 10 days and was listed as "Jane Doe." Boyd was reportedly taken to Wake County Jail and her bail was set at $200,000. Her mother is traveling to North Carolina to get her, according to the report. Fares Sabawi covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County for mySA.com. Read more of his stories here. | fsabawi@mysa.com A drunken driver crashed into a utility pole Wednesday morning at an apartment complex on the North Side, police said. The suspect, an unidentified woman, crashed into the pole around 2:30 a.m. in the 8500 block of Ahern Drive, causing a power outage that affected residents in the surrounding area. Remember when Attorney General Jeff Sessions and ICE acting director Thomas D. Homan decried interference in an immigrant raid in Northern California? Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf had issued a public warning about the raid in February, and Sessions and Homan responded by saying the warning allowed some 800 criminals to escape. Well, thats not really true. At least thats what a now former ICE spokesman told the San Francisco Chronicle. Former because James Schwab quit the agency after he said he was told to perpetuate misleading facts. In other words, deflect and lie. Schwab said the ICE raid captured 232 suspected undocumented immigrants, which was more than officials had expected. Half of those picked up had felonies or misdemeanors. The target list included about 1,000 names, but he said no sweep ever comes close to finding all of the people on a target list. Its also unclear just what crimes, if any, the ICE targets had committed. We were never going to pick up that many people, he told the Chronicle. To say that 100 percent are dangerous criminals on the street, or that those people werent picked up because of the misguided actions of the mayor, is just wrong. Schwab said the mayor was misguided in offering a public warning about the raid. But there was absolutely no need for ICE to mislead the public about her warning. Based on Schwabs account, supported by his willingness to quit his job, the mayors warning had nominal to no effect on the raid. This administration appears intent on vilifying all immigrants as criminals. Thats a false narrative, seemingly dependent on other false narratives. Thats an inconvenient fact about this administration that shouldnt be ignored. The best French wine regions are so celebrated that their names Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne and the rest are familiar to the most casual wine drinker. For connoisseurs, these French wine names may evoke fond memories and great expectations of their favorite types of French wine. For centuries, French wines have set standards to inspire winemakers around the world. No other country has Frances long history of fine wine production, which has helped define wine styles around the world. How significant is France in the world of wine? The most popular international grape varieties, from Chardonnay to Merlot to Cabernet Sauvignon, are native to France. In many years France produces (and consumes!) more wine than any other country. Its production and export of fine wines is unmatched. The ancient Greeks were the first to take advantage of Frances potential for wine production, as they planted vines in their colonies along the Mediterranean coastline more than 2,500 years ago. After the Romans conquered Gaul in 51 B.C., they took vines and winemaking practices north across the land. In the following centuries, Christian monasteries became centers for viticulture, and their monks made pioneering advances in both winemaking and distilling. By the Middle Ages, the English had already recognized the excellence of wines of France, and while they controlled Bordeaux they expanded the regions existing vineyards to supply the brand-new export market. Over the centuries, time and experience dictated which types of French wine fared best in the countrys varied climates and terrain. In the south, the relatively warm Mediterranean climate ripens grapes fully, producing fruit-forward wines. To the north, cooler regions such as Alsace and Champagne are the ideal home for white wines with high acidity. The varied geographies of the Loire, to the west, and Burgundy and the Rhone, to the east, each have their own best styles of wine, defined by unique weather and soil conditions that special combination of elements the French describe as terroir. With this long history, it's no surprise that the French were the first to codify what wines should be produced in certain areas. The country's Appelation d'Origine Controlee (AOC) laws, established in 1935, not only define the country's appellations there are more than 450 but the grape varieties that can be used in a region, the minimum amount of alcohol a wine must contain, the maximum yield of grapes permitted per hectare and other principles meant to preserve an area's winemaking traditions and ensure consumers enjoy an authentic product. For example, French wine names that include "Champagne" can only be used on wines made in the Champagne region, from one or more of three permitted grape varieties. Today, the AOC system now used in France in concert with a similar one designed for European Union countries is a model for regulations that guide winemaking practices around the world, including American Viticultural Areas in the United States, Denominazione di Origine Controllata in Italy and Denominacion de Origen in Spain. The Forum 8356 Agora Parkway Selma, TX 78154 (210) 566-1503 Del Norte 125 NW Loop 410 San Antonio, TX 78216 (210) 524-9300 The Rim 17530 La Cantera Parkway San Antonio, TX 78257 (210) 877-9155 You can also shop online at www.TotalWine.com. Editors Note: This content is made possible by Total Wine & More. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of The San Antonio Express-News' or mySanAntonio.com's editorial staff. Learn more about our advertising products at www.hearstmediasanantonio.com. 1 Palestinian sentenced: Palestinian teenage protest icon Ahed Tamimi on Wednesday was sentenced to eight months in prison for slapping and kicking a pair of Israeli soldiers outside her West Bank home, capping a case that sparked uproar in Israel, turned the 17-year-old girl into a Palestinian hero and attracted international attention. Tamimis lawyer said Tamimi agreed to the sentence as part of a plea deal with prosecutors that allowed her to avoid more serious charges that could have imprisoned her for years. Under the deal, she could go free in May with good behavior. She is also being fined the equivalent of about $1,400. The judge agreed to a similar plea deal for Tamimis mother, Nariman, who has been charged with incitement. Tamimi was arrested in December after video surfaced of her kicking the soldiers outside her West Bank home. While some praised the soldiers for showing restraint, hard-line politicians criticized what they felt was a weak response. 2 President steps down: Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski resigned Wednesday after political opponents released video and audio recordings that they say implicate the 79-year-old leader in a vote-buying scheme to avoid impeachment. Kuczynskis departure ends a long-running political battle with Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of disgraced former President Alberto Fujimori and the leader of the Popular Force majority faction in Congress. Kuczynski defeated her in the 2016 presidential race. Kuczynski ran a campaign based on promises to clean up a government beset by corruption. On Tuesday, Keiko Fujimori released seven excerpts from video and audio recordings in which lawmakers allied with Kuczynski allegedly promised public works projects in districts of members of the opposition party in exchange for their support in last years impeachment proceedings. Kuczynski narrowly escaped impeachment on moral incapacity charges in December. FORMER Bulawayo Provincial Affairs Minister Mrs Eunice Nomthandazo Moyo, who was expelled from Zanu-PF last year, has distanced herself from the G40-linked political outfit, the National Patriotic Front. Mrs Moyo joins several Zanu-PF members and ex-officials who have disassociated themselves from the Retired Brigadier General Ambrose Mutinhiri-led NPF which is said to enjoy the backing of former President Mr Robert Mugabe. In an interview in the city yesterday, Mrs Moyo said she was not part of any political formation. What has that (NPF) got to do with me? Its got nothing to do with me. Ive nothing to do with people who create parties. I realised that the other day you guys (media) put my name in there without talking to me, she said. Mrs Moyo said she was still assessing the countrys political situation before making her next move. Politics is my choice. If I want to continue with politics, I will although I havent made a decision. Im still observing the situation. I believe that my silence has nothing to do with my decision to join another political party. No, she said. Mrs Moyo however, did not rule out joining another political party. After seeing that what is happening is not correct, an individual finds like-minded people and works with them to fix what is wrong. That is why I joined the struggle. I didnt join the struggle by being force-marched to Zambia. I went there by myself and I was mature then. Last week, former Zanu-PF Youth League Secretary for Youth Affairs Mr Kudzanai Chipanga revealed that he had turned away Rtd-Brig Mutinhiris emissaries sent to recruit him to join the party. Other individuals who have distanced themselves from the alleged G40 project include former Cabinet Ministers Mr Makhosini Hlongwane and Dr Walter Mzembi. Others are former Zanu-PF officials Mr Jeppy Jaboon, Mr Shadreck Mashayamombe and legislators, Mr Simbaneuta Mudarikwa and Mr Edgar Mbwembwe. Bulawayo24 Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News Do you know who the top 10 richest kings in Nigeria are? Lets talk about the first class rulers who are on the throne now and have a huge impact on their regions. 10. Olubadan of Ibadan The term Olubadan means Lord of Ibadan. The rulers of this region must undergo many years of testing and receive the chieftaincy promotion. There is quite a difficult competition in the result of which almost any man can become a king. Usually, candidates are representatives of two ruling dynasties Egbe Agba (civil) and Balogun (military). After the death of the monarch, they are elected on a rotational basis. 11 top leaders form Olubadan-in-council manage courts dealing with family, land, communal, and other matters. Photo of Samuel Odulana from naijaloaded.com.ng Oba Samuel Odulana has symbolic power as Olubadan because, over time, this post lost many privileges. However, this king is still in the center of attention, engaged in local political issues, solves the problems of corruption, violence, promotes democratic principles in the region. 9. Obi of Onitsha The traditional Onitsha leader rules in the Anambra State. Igwe Nnayelugo Alfred Nnaemeka Achebe. He was born on May 14, 1941, and was crowned on June 3, 2002. Photo of Obi of Onitsha from naijaloaded.com.ng 8. Olu of Warri The Kingdom of Warri is situated in Delta State. Olu heads the Itsekiri people. Godwin Toju Emiko who is a lawyer by education and he is the current OKU Of warri. His coronation occurred on the 2nd of May, 1987. He became a member of Warri Traditional Council in 1983. He also served in Warri Local Government Council. Photo of Olu of Warri from naijaloaded.com.ng 7. Oba of Lagos Despite the fact that this ruler does not have real governmental power, many lawyers and politicians apply for his protection. The ceremonial head of Lagos is still an extremely authoritative person because he rules in one of the largest cities in Africa. At the moment, Lagos is the financial heart of Nigeria so it's no wonder that local Oba automatically becomes a man of enormous influence. Oba of Lagos - photo from thisdaylive.com At the moment, Lagos is ruled by Oba Rilwan Babatunde Osuolale Aremu Akiolu I who was crowned in 2003. He is also known by the name Eleko of Eko. 6. Oba of Benin Oba of Benin (Omo NOba) traditionally heads Edo people. He also is a leader of ancient Eweka dynasty of the Benin Kingdom. NEdo Uku Akpolokpolo Erediauwa I, the current Oba of Benin, was crowned in 1979. He is the 38th person to obtain this post. After ascension to the throne, he showed that has a deep diplomatic talent because he successfully resolved disputes between politicians. NEdo Uku Akpolokpolo Erediauwa I - photo from guardian.ng 5. Dein of Agbor Agbor is city situated in Delta state and populated by Igbo people. Once this city was connected with Benin Empire. Then it was conquered by Europeans. Now Benjamin Ikenchuku Keagborekuzi sits on the throne. The name "Dein of Agbor" is due to his ruling house. Usually, the local ruler is called Eze or Obi. He became a king only at the age of 2 years and 4 months. Such an early coronation is associated with the death of his father. Thus, Dein of Agbor became the youngest king in the history and entered the Guinness Book of Records in 1981. Photo of Dein of Agbor from naijaloaded.com.ng After the coronation, the boy left his homeland for studies and returned to Agbor in 2001. In 2006, he became the fourth and youngest Chancellor at the University of Ilorin in accordance with President Olusegun Obasanjo's order. Also, his merits include such titles as Officer in the Order of the Crown, Belgium and the Vice-Chairman of Delta State Traditional Rulers Council. 4. Ooni of Ife He is the traditional ruler of the ancient Ile-Ife town located in the south-west of Nigeria. The royal dynasty is more than a hundred years old. At the moment, Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi Ojaja II is sitting on the throne. He was born on October 17, 1974, and became king after the death of his predecessor Oba Okunade Sijuwade on October 26, 2015. READ ALSO: Ooni of Ife net worth, palace and car Photo of Ooni of Ife from naijaloaded.com.ng This king often participates in solemn ceremonies. He is highly respected in Nigeria and beyond. Ooni of Ife net worth wasnt disclosed in Forbes or any other official publication but he is definitely one of top 10 contenders for the title of the richest king in Nigeria. 3. Sultan of Sokoto After colonization, this post became more ceremonial than endowed with real power. However, such rulers still exert an important influence on the peoples of Hausa and Fulani living in the north of Nigeria. At the moment, Sultan of Sokoto is Muhammadu Saad Abubakar IV. This is the 20th person who took this post. Throne passed to him after his brother Muhammadu Maccido died in a plane crash. Photo of Sultan of Sokoto from dailypost.ng Sultan of Sokoto occupies the position of spiritual leader under whose guardianship there are 70 million Muslims in the territory of Nigeria. This is about half of the total population of the country. 2. Alaafin of Oyo This is another important monarchy title whose possessor has a great influence on his people. In fact, the word Alaafin has the same meaning as Oba - the ruler, the king. The current Alaafin of Oyo is Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi III who started his reign in 1970. Alaafin of Oyo - photo from naijaloaded.com.ng Until 2011, he had some privileges which were lost later: the traditional ruler headed the Council of Obas and Chiefs. By order of the governor of Oyo State, he was deprived of this post. Now Alaafin has to fight for the chairman's post with two rivals: the Olubadan of Ibadanland and the Soun of Ogbomoso. 1. Emir of Kano This king heads the Kano Emirate which was formed in 1805, at the time of Fulani Jihad. Mallam Muhammad Sanusi II sits on the throne now. He came to replace Alhaji Dr. Ado Abdullahi Bayero who ruled from 1963-2014. The past of the current Emir is connected with successful banking activity. Previously, he was Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. The publication "The Banker" which considers banking topics in the media assigned to him 2 honorary awards for excellent work. In 2011, magazine Time mentioned Mallam Muhammad Sanusi II among the most influential people of the year. Emir of Kano - photo from informationng.com We hope that you enjoyed reading about top 10 majestic monarchs. Each of them could compete for the title of the richest Oba in Nigeria. The luxurious lifestyle and respect that people show to them are truly admirable. READ ALSO: Most powerful pastors in Nigeria and their net worth Source: Legit President Muhammdu Buhari and his deputy, on Tuesday, March 20, met with Namadi Sambo, the vice president during the administration of Goodluck Jonathan in Abuja, according to various reports and a video evidence. One of such reports by Daily Sun said the closed-door meeting, which took place at the presidents office, lasted for about 25 minutes with Sambo later telling journalists that the meeting with President Buhari was private and usual. READ ALSO: Electoral Act amendment: 21 APC governors to convince Senate to support Buhari's decision He said this before he stepped into his car and was driven off at about 12.25pm. Sambo had met with Osinbajo on May 2017, when the latter acted on behalf of Buhari during his health travail. They met behind closed doors but the purpose of the meeting was not revealed. The report noted that in September, 2017, Sambo had joined President Buhari for Jumaat prayers at the mosque in the Presidential Villa, Abuja, as part of activities to mark the nations 57th independence anniversary. Legit.ng earlier reported that Namadi Sambo raised an alarm sometimes ago over the alleged raid on his house by the Department of State Services (DSS). Sambo noted that the most recent raid on his house was the fifth in a sequence. Explaining how the security operatives raided his home, Sambo said despite the continuous action of the organisations, nothing incriminating had been found. In reaction, the the Department of State Services (DSS) denied invading the ex-vice president's home and warned other security and anti-corruption agencies to desist from operating in the name of the service. What does Nigeria need right now? (Nigerian Street Interview) | Legit.ng TV Source: Legit - A mobile policeman reportedly killed a soldier in Odimodi community, in the Burutu local government area of Delta state - The policeman and the soldier were part of the security team guarding an oil facility operated by Shell Petroleum Development Company - The soldier was said to have been shot during an argument with the policeman A soldier has been reportedly shot dead by an unidentified mobile policeman guarding an oil facility operated by Shell Petroleum Development Company. The incident happened on Saturday, March 17 in Odimodi community, in the Burutu local government area of Delta state, Punch reports. Legit.ng notes that there was a misunderstanding between the two men, which eventually led to the death of the soldier READ ALSO: Nigeria's longest serving school principal Reverend Father O'Connell dies at 85 A credible source confirmed the incident. He said he could he could not tell what led to the argument, adding that witnesses had seen the two security men engage in a fierce exchange of words. It was reported that other members of the team had gone on a patrol of oil facilities in the area at the time of the incident. A community leader who craved anonymity, said: The incident happened on Saturday at noon. The two officers a mopol and the military officer were members of a combined security team stationed to guard oil facilities in Odimodi community. They had a misunderstanding. After a while, we heard gunshots. When people got there, they discovered that the mobile policeman had killed the soldier. The policeman cocked his gun and fired at the soldier and thereafter shot to scare people away from the scene. He (policeman) took the soldiers gun and ran away. As of now, he has not been apprehended. The JTF authorities have removed the corpse of the slain soldier. There is tension in the community as we speak. People are afraid that the military may invade the community. Major Ibrahim Abdullahi, the spokesperson for Operation Delta Safe, said he was not aware of the incident, but police public relations officer, Andrew Aniamaka, promised to react after speaking to the divisional police officer in charge of the area. He was yet to get back as of press time. An operative of the Department of State Services, however, confirmed the incident, adding that efforts were being made to apprehend the culprit. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that a clash broke between officers of the Nigerian army and police officers in Ekiti state after a policeman reportedly challenged a soldier for allegedly extorting money from motorist and causing traffic in the process. The police officer, Corporal Abdulkadir Yakub, was reportedly stabbed with a jack-knife by an angry soldier. It was reported that Yakub sustained deep cuts in the head and but*ocks after soldiers numbering up to 17 in number descended on him. Is the Nigerian police your friend? - on Legit.ng TV Source: Legit - Brother of Delta states ex-governor James Ibori has tied the knot with a younger woman - The couple tied the knot at a traditional ceremony in Ethiope west local government area - They joined their lives together in the presence on family and friends William Ibori, the elder brother of former governor of Delta state, James Ibori, has tied the knot with a younger woman at a traditional ceremony in Ogharefe, Ethiope west local government area of the state. The groom who was a chief of Oghara kingdom got married to his partner on Friday, March 16. It was gathered that the former Unugbrogo of Oghara kingdom took part in the traditional process to claim his wife in the presence of family and friends. In 2010, His Royal Majesty Oreki II, the Ovie of Oghara Kingdom, derobed William as a chief of Oghara kingdom. READ ALSO: Media personality Vimbai slams female celebrities on social media It was gathered that he was derobed as a result of gross acts of disloyalty and disrespect to monarch and the traditional institution. It was alleged that he unlawfully installed 48 persons as chiefs in Ogharefe. James Ibori's elder brother weds younger woman in Delta state Photo source: Facebook page Hope For Nigeria On two occasions, he was said to have been summoned by the traditional rulers of the 23 Kingdoms in Urhoboland to defend himself , but he allegedly dismissed their request. PAY ATTENTION: Get all the latest gossips on NAIJ News They tied the knot on March 16 Photo source: Facebook page Hope For Nigeria His brother, James Ibori was governor of Delta state from May 29, 1999 to May 29, 2007. His political career began in 1990 when he joined the National Republican Convention. The tied the knot in the presence of family and friends Photo source: Facebook page Hope For Nigeria Women need to work ten times harder to get noticed in the Nigerian music industry on Legit.ng TV Source: Legit - The Edo state government and the UN Development Programme organised an entrepreneurship training for 42 Libyan returnees - One of the returnees who recently concluded the training expressed his appreciation to the UNDP and the state government for impacting in his life - The state governor, Obaseki, commended the UNDP for the support and partnership as well as commitment towards the programme in the state Forty two Libyan returnees and other other youths in Edo state have concluded an entrepreneurship training that was organised by the state government and the UNDP, NAN reports. Legit.ng notes that the country director of UNDP, Samuel Bwalya, represented by an official, Robert Asogwa, said that the UN agency was committed to bringing to an end to human trafficking and illegal migration in the state. He said that UNDP initiated the training to help the state deal with the current challenges of human trafficking and illegal migration by empowering the youth. Bwalya commended Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo for empowering the youth in the state, stressing that the governor was very passionate about the programme and has demonstrated it. According to him, UNDP prioritised youth empowerment because it was very key to addressing all social vices, whether it is militancy, youth restiveness, or illegal migration. READ ALSO: Law professor shares inspiring experience as a messenger in University of Jos He said: You know that most of the countries that are successful today have their successes linked to entrepreneurship, whether it is China, India or elsewhere. At UNDP we have partnership with governments to have robust programme on empowerment on innovation, entrepreneurship, skill acquisition and sustainable finance programmes. Entrepreneur is key even if you dont get employment you can start your own business and employ others in the next one or two years. We want to create more young entrepreneurs in order to address the insurgency and to stem the youth restiveness. I am sure if we are able to have massive number of youth entrepreneurs we will be able to destroy the business of traffickers, illegal migration." Earlier, Obaseki who was represented by his chief of staff, Taiwo Akinrele, commended the UNDP for the support and partnership as well as commitment towards the programme in the state. He said: The Edo government is committed to skill acquisition particularly to build the capacity of its citizen to take the advantage of the business and new investment in the state We are not discouraging migration but you need to migrate legally which could only be done when you have skill and capacity. We are going to scale up this intervention for others to partake in the programme. We are still going to set up monitoring scheme to help you further." One of the trainees, Paul Oshamodiamen, thanked the UNDP and Edo government for organising the training which he said had changed his orientation and focus. The 49 year old father of six said that the training would help him to establish a viable business that would make him live happily rather than embarking on dangerous journey again to Libya. He said: I want to say a very big thank you to the UNDP because they remember us to put together the training to help us stabilise in our business. They have actually created an impact and added value to my life." PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo state approved the release of 150 hectares of land and N100 million seed capital for the 150 Libyan returnees and victims of human trafficking. It was reported that the money and land were given to those who completed a skills acquisition training at the Edo Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) office in Benin City, the Edo state capital. Mass deportation: Tales of woes from Libya - on Legit.ng TV Source: Legit - Nollywood actress Lola Margaret who was allegedly arrested on charges of credit card fraud and later released, gets deported - Margaret was allegedly sent back home to Nigeria after she gave up the names of her partners to the US police - According to reports, the Bisola Alan star actress has quietly relocated to Ibadan and gone off social media Legit.ng earlier shared details of Nollywood actress, Lola Margaret who was detained in the US over credit card fraud and later released after she reportedly gave the names of her partners up to the police. Following her release, the actress is said to have been deported back to Nigeria from America. Reports claim Margaret has since quietly relocated to Ibadan and is staying away from Lagos where she previously resided. The actress has also been absent in many societal functions of late and fans are now worried about her current state. Recall Lola relocated to the US a little over a year ago. Things got ugly when she landed in the police nest for withdrawing huge amounts of money from the bank . After making bail and getting released, the Bisola Alan star got sent back home to Nigeria. READ ALSO: Runtown shares adorable photo of his 9-month-old son Unfortunately, she appears to have eloped from social media as well as her account is not found, making fans believe she has changed her name and gone private. Lola Margaret is a Nigerian actress whose career blossomed after she starred in the movie titled Bisola Alan. Since then she has appeared in some major Nollywood productions up until she relocated to the US. However, the actress who is reportedly residing in Ibadan and keeping a low profile, is said to be planning a comeback to the industry in the nearest future. PAY ATTENTION: Read best news on Nigeria's #1 news app 2017: The Most Controversial Naija Celebrities Of The Year on Legit.ng TV: Source: Legit - Suspected herdsmen attacked farmers in Delta - Four farmers were reportedly killed - The community members called on the government to come to their aide Armed men suspected to be herdsmen have reportedly killed four farmers in Delta state. It was reported that the farmers were on a fishing expenditure when they were reportedly shot dead by suspected herdsmen. The Punch reports that some people also sustained varying degrees of injury. The attack was carried out over the weekend and has sent fear into the mind of residents. A security personnel confirmed the attack which he said took place at a bush in Oreba village of Uwheru community. READ ALSO: Police sergeant, 3 others arrested for robbing deputy governor Another source said those that survived the attack were receiving treatment in various hospitals. A senior police officer at the Ughelli Police Area Command also confirmed the attack and said the bodies of the deceased have been recovered. The president general, Uwheru community, Ogarivi Utso, called on security operatives to come to their aid claiming the community was under siege. Meanwhile, Governor Samuel Ortom said there is no alternative to the ranching law enacted by the Benue state government to regulate livestock business. He stated this on Tuesday, March 20, at the Benue Peoples House, Makurdi while briefing journalists after a meeting with the state and zonal leadership of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN). PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app The governor said the ranching law was the collective decision of Benue people, stressing that he lacks the powers even as governor to reverse or make adjustments to it. He disclosed that MACBAN had requested for more time to enable them adjust and conform with the law but he had promised them that the law would be implemented with a human face and that was being done. Victims of Herdsmen killing buried in Benue State on Legit.ng TV Source: Legit - A northern leader, Coomassie, has said the country cannot survive without the north - According to him, the northern region has been portrayed in a negative light since 1999 - He also lamented that the region has been bedeviled by terrorist attacks Ibrahim Ahmadu Coomassie who is the chairman of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has said that Nigeria cannot survive without the north and urged leaders from the region to save its reputation. Leadership reports that he said this when he received the leadership of the foremost northern women socio-cultural organisation, Jamiyya Matan Arewa (JMA). READ ALSO: Atiku praises IG's directive for police to be withdrawn from VIPs The Arewa leader said the region has been portrayed in a negative light since 1999 and there was need to change this perception. He said: We all know that without the North, Nigeria can never survive. We still stand by it. But now is the time to walk the talk in the interest of our people. Chibok girls are still missing. Now it has gone to Dapchi in Yobe State, what happened? Are we always going to be the victims? Boko Haram, see what they did to the Northeast. They have spread over to the North-central and even to the southern part of the country. Should we continue to be regarded on the negative side? No. We are leaders in our own right and we must exercise this responsibility for our people. Whenever there is crisis, women and children are always the major victims. Enough is enough. We are proud that you have come forward to meet us to discuss this issue. PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, the coalition of civil society groups against terrorism in Nigeria accused international rights organization, Amnesty International of what it described as its judgmental reports on the security situation in the troubled North eastern part of the country. According to a statement issued jointly signed by its convener and registrar, Comrade Odeyemi Oladimeji and Atani John respectively, Nigerian Security Forces ignored warnings about Boko Haram attack on Dapchi as totally undeserving and a joke taken too far by Amnesty International, at the expense of Nigerias Internal Security and sovereignty. Nigerian Air Force operations against Boko Haram - on Legit.ng TV: Source: Legit - Amnesty International has been accused by the Defence headquarters of working against the interest of Nigeria - It faulted the report by group which claimed that security operatives were alerted about the attack by Boko Haram in Dapchi in advance - In a statement released by the Defence headquarters, it said it is improper for the organisation to incite the Nigerian public and international community against the Military The Defence headquarters has lashed out at Amnesty International for claiming that it alerted security operatives about the attack by Boko Haram that lead to the abduction of 110 girls from a secondary school in Dapchi. The group had released a statement claiming the army failed to prevent the kidnap of the girls even after getting prior information of the attack but the defence headquarters described this as false. It accused the group of working against the interest of the country saying this was not the first false statement released against security operatives. The defence headquarters said AI was trying to prevent the US collaboration with Nigeria to end insurgency. READ ALSO: Atiku praises IG's directive for police to be withdrawn from VIPs Read statement below: The Defence Headquarters wishes to respond to Amnesty International (AI) report in which the group alleged that the Nigerian Military and security forces were informed that a convoy of Boko Haram fighters were heading towards Dapchi in Yobe state to abduct some school girls, and failed to act accordingly. Apart from questioning the motive of Amnesty International, it is pertinent to state that most of their narratives are outright falsehood and a calculated attempt to whip up sentiments and mislead unsuspecting Nigerians, demoralise friendly nations and people collaborating with security forces to end the forces of evil in the North-East. For the avoidance of doubts, no security force was informed of Dapchi school girls abduction as alleged by AI. The Nigerian public and the International Community should know that the Armed Forces of Nigeria is a professional military and has attained the highest form of professionalism in line with international best practices. And so, could not have ignored warnings of Boko Haram attack only to work tirelessly to get the girls back. It is not proper for an organization like AI who do not meant well for Nigeria going by their previous reputation of denigrating the security forces anytime they make gains against the forces of evil to incite the Nigerian public and international community against the Military. Some of our Services Chiefs, senior commanders presecuting the war against Insurgency and even some heads of security and paramilitary services are from the North- East. They have put their lives on the line severally to end the madness in the North-East. It is therefore very unfair for AI that does not care if the country survives as a united indivisible entity to come up every time to put doubts in the minds of the people about the military that has remained dedicated to keeping the country one. Amnesty International always brings out damming reports about the Nigerian Military at strategic points. They did that in the previous administration and the United States invoked the Leahy Law against Nigeria at the peak of the Boko Haram insurgency. Within this year, Amnesty International issued reports against the Military in January 2018, February 2018 and now March 2018. The question is; what is the motive of the AI? The answer is simple; President Donald Trump of the United States of America has agreed to collaborate with the current government of Nigeria to end insurgency in the North East and AI wants to do everything within its powers to make sure that the US-Nigeria anti-terrorism cooperation does not succeed in accordance with their paymasters design. The question Amnesty International has not answered satisfactorily is; which of the security forces and what unit was informed that a convoy of Boko Haram fighters were heading towards Dapchi where they abducted Dapchi school girls? What was the telephone numbers used to inform the Military or the Police? Why has AI refused to communicate its findings with the Federal Governments Committee set up to investigate what happened before, during and after Dapchi girls abduction? Is AI trying to undermine the outcome of this committee? The answer is simple, AI is not ready to contribute towards finding a solution to our problems, if anything, they are ready to complicate the problems. Within the military and amongst well meaning Nigerians at home and in diaspora, we know that AI is an organ established to embark on orchestrated campaign of calumny against the Nigerian Military and undermine its laudable achievements against Boko Haram. Unfounded and inaccurate reports such as this by AI is completely unacceptable, and only exist in the figment of AI imaginations and should be discountenanced by well meaning Nigerians and foreign friendly nations. PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app For avoidance of doubt, the Armed Forces of Nigeria is more than ever, poised to bring the activities of Boko Haram Terrorists to a complete end and no amount of discouraging fabrications by the AI will deter the military from achieving its constitutionally assigned responsibilities. The defence of our national territorial integrity is our utmost goal and as such the Armed Forces in conjunction with sister security agencies will continue to strive towards entrenching peace in the North-East and indeed every part of this great nation. Meanwhile, the coalition of civil society groups against terrorism in Nigeria accused international rights organization, amnesty international of what it described as its judgmental reports on the security situation in the troubled North eastern part of the country. According to a statement issued jointly signed by its convener and registrar, Comrade Odeyemi Oladimeji and Atani John respectively, Nigerian Security Forces ignored warnings about Boko Haram attack on Dapchi as totally undeserving and a joke taken too far by Amnesty International, at the expense of Nigerias Internal Security and sovereignty. Nigerian Air Force operations against Boko Haram - on Legit.ng TV: Source: Legit - Olisa Metuh has accused the federal government and the APC of politically interfering with his trial - He also alleged that the FG and the APC are harassing and intimidating his doctors - His lawyer accused the APC and the federal government of launching massive campaign against Metuh and his health condition The former publicity secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Olisa Metuh, has accused the federal government and the All Progressives Congress of harassing and intimidating his doctors. Metuh's lawyer, Ben Chuks-Nwosu, in a letter, said he has witnessed statements and sponsored articles by the APC and some federal government officers in the trial of the former spokesperson for the PDP. Nwosu said: "More disturbing is the direct threat, harassment and intimidation of medical personnel and institutions involved in the treatment and management of our client's ill-health. "We have instances and evidence of these APC controlled agents and agencies directly interfering with the various hospitals that have admitted Chief Metuh in the last two months but the latest is the letter written by APC to the Wellington hospital, London, U.K, depicting our client as an enemy of the Nigerian state and one that should not even access to medical treatment abroad. "A simple Google search on Dr. Adrian Casey would have revealed his profile including his references in the wellington hospital website. However these individuals were actually more interested in continuing with the ridicule and media trial of our client and to go further to create controversies even with his last hope for medical succour." READ ALSO: Buhari gives MDAs 2-day ultimatum to submit budget to National Assembly He queried whether the APC and federal government operatives are more interested in ensuring that Metuh is denied access to medical treatment at all cost. The lawyer also accused the APC and the federal government of launching massive campaign against Metuh and his health condition. Nwosu said: "These people are quite aware that the learned Judge had ruled that he will no longer accept medical reports from any doctor in Nigeria. On the same day, the court ordered that Metuh must appear in court at the next adjourned date and the only clear choice for a bedridden person would be to appear in court with his hospital bed or in a stretcher." "The clear fact, as evidenced by his MRI report, is that Chief Olisa Metuh has severe spondylosis with disc herniations, cord and nerve root compression in his cervical, thoracic and lumbosacral spine. This has resulted in semi-paralysis and we have even gone further in open Court to request that the prosecution be allowed to conduct their own independent clinical examination of the person involved. "Our Client has not left the confines of a hospital or his own bedroom for the past 2 months except to attend Court proceedings. He spent several hours in Court on the 14th of March, 2018 and had to be taken straight to hospital to be sedated with pentadine injection and other strong pain killers." READ ALSO: You lied! - Jonathan replies Osinbajo on alleged N150 billion shared in 2015 According to the lawyer, Metuh had to take strong pain killer injections early morning, in order to be present in court for his trial. He said this resulted in our Metuh being semi-drowsy on the 15th and 16th March and he was clearly unable to even observe or follow the proceedings in open court. He said the same court refusing to grant Metuh medical leave has allowed others to go for medical check- up abroad and even for pilgrimage. He stated that he believes the media trials are aimed at convincing the public that Metuh is already guilty and convicted even before he has given his evidence in the matter. "Our Client, Chief Olisa Metuh has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has been making his case on his innocence. He has applied the highest level of comportment in showing his respect for our legal system. His only worry remains his plea to be allowed to have a definitive treatment of his worsening ailment. He has suffered humiliation and pain simply by being obedient to court orders. "The fight against corruption does not imply persecution, manifest wickedness and lynch mob approach to particular individuals. Enough is Enough!" Nwosu concluded. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Legit.ng earlier reported that the United Kingdom chapter of the APC had accused Metuh of playing out a Nollywood drama in court by claiming to be seriously ill. The APC made the allegation in reference to a video where the former PDP spokesperson was brought to court in a wheelchair, surrounded by aides and medical personnel. The party said the former PDP spokesperson was trying to play the justice system after embezzling Nigeria's N400 million. The luxury of corruption: What money can buy - on Legit.ng TV Source: Legit.ng - The INEC has registered a new political party called Modern Democratic Party - The party is led by a 27-year-old activist and entrepreneur, Prince Bukunyi Olateru-Olagbegi - The newly registered party represents the new face of active youths involvement in politics A new political party, Modern Democratic Party (MDP), has been registered by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). With the registration of the new party, Nigerian youths have started to position themselves for political leadership and active participation for the 2019 general elections, The Nation reports. Legit.ng notes that the new party led by a 27-year-old activist and entrepreneur, Prince Bukunyi Olateru-Olagbegi, was issued a certificate of registration by the electoral body. READ ALSO: JAMB releases results of over 1.5m 2018 UTME candidates The registered party intends to galvanise youths into engaging in policy formulation, government accountability and running for political office. MDP represents the new face of active youths involvement in politics. Bukunyi Olateru-Olagbegi stated that the party belongs solely to Nigerians who yearn to see a difference in politics and governance. According to him, the mission of the party is to be home for those who are weary of the status quo and want to be part of something fresh, new, untainted and different. He said: We are focused on harnessing the mental and physical resources of this unique generation of youth brimming with fresh ideas and innovations which will finally put Nigeria in its rightful place on the world stage. We know that the journey ahead of us will be long. This is not a party registered for the 2019 presidential elections. We are here for the long haul and wish to call on all true patriots of our fatherland to get involved as we embark on this journey towards building Nigerias first and truly Modern Democratic Party." Recall that in 2017, the Senate passed the Not Too Young To Run Bill which seeks age reduction for elective officers in the country and allows the youths an opportunity to contest for the office of the president at the age of 35, and governor or senator at the age of 30. As the President Muhammadu Buhari is being called upon by youths across the country to assent to the bill, the Modern Democratic Party has gone ahead to unveil its manifesto and planned activities in preparation for the forthcoming general elections. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Monday, January 15, issued certificate of registration to Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) in obedience to a court order. The certificate was presented to the leadership of the newly registered party by INECs national commissioner, Alhaji Baba Arfo, at the commissions headquarters in Abuja. The Federal High Court in Abuja on November 28, 2017, ordered INEC to register SPN and issue it certificate of registration. Is the newly-formed political party the solution to Nigeria's woes? - on Legit.ng TV Source: Legit Nigeria - A wanted Boko Haram terrorist has been arrested by the Nigerian Army - Bubayi Isa is the 37th suspect on Nigerian Army's list of wanted Boko Haram terrorists suspect - He was arrested alongisde three others in Adamawa state Nigerian troops of 23 Brigade under Operation Lafiya Dole on Tuesday, March 20, arrested a wanted Boko Haram suspect, Bubayi Isa from Panama village, Gunda district, Biu local government area of Borno state, following a tip off. Legit.ng gathered that Bubayi is the 37th suspect on the list of Boko Haram terrorists suspect published by army authorities last year. Others arrested with him are Muhammad Buba and Abdullahi Abubakar from the same area while Yakubu Abdullahi hails from Sabon Gari Gado in Bayo local government area also of Borno state. Bubayi is the 37th suspect on the list of Boko Haram terrorists suspects. Photo credit: Nigerian Army READ ALSO: Nigeria police issues red-alert in Borno, warns of impending strike by Boko Haram A statement sent to Legit.ng by Brigadier General Texas Chukwu who is the director, army public relations revealed that the suspects were arrested in Kalaa village in Hong local government area of Adamawa state. The suspects have also confessed of belonging to a Boko Haram terrorists group and their various involvement following a preliminary investigation by the troops, the statement said. Some of the Boko Haram terrorists apprehended by the troops. Photo credit: Nigerian Army Meanwhile, about 95 former Boko Haram fighters are set to be reintegrated into the Nigerian society after series of training, vocational skills acquisition, and rehabilitation courses. The repentant terrorists were trained by the Nigerian Army wing charged with the responsibility of Deracialising, Rehabilitation and Reintegration (DRR) in Gombe state. Legit.ng gathered that they were rehabilitated by instructors from departments and agencies from the federal government and the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) with the aim of retraining them to become law abiding citizens. READ ALSO: Wives of detained Boko Haram suspects, Nigerian military differ on alleged maltreatment Boko Haram Kidnappings: Dapchi community protests abduction of their daughters by Boko Haram - on Legit.ng TV Source: Legit.ng - Abubakar Bello says the influx of illegal immigrants into Nigeria is becoming alarming - Governor Bello urges the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) to act urgently in this regard - He promises that his government will work with the agency to protect Niger state The governor of Niger state, Abubakar Bello, has called on the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) to urgently move into arresting a situation involving the alleged influx of illegal immigrants into the country saying this has become alarming. Speaking when he received the new comptroller of immigration in the state, Amadih Honby, in his office in Minna, Governor Bello promised that his government would partner with the agency to address the challenge. READ ALSO: Nigeria cannot survive with the north - Arewa leader Let me first commend you for the good job you are doing, especially in the state and the country at large. You have a very wide border to manage in Niger state, starting from Gundu, Babana and our borders with Kebbi and Zamfara states. We have a lot of entry points into the state, which allow people to access the state from so many places. I have received reports on the influx of irregular immigrants into the state and most of them are coming from Niger Republic. There is need for us to find sustainable solution to this problem. I assure you of our continuous support as we have been assisting other federal agencies in the state, so you can function very well and succeed," he said as reported by Vanguard. PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 new app Speaking at the meeting, Honby commended the governor for his commitment and support so far towards ensuring that the agency functions well in the state. She promised to work with the government towards securing the state. Legit.ng earlier reported that the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) suspended two officers, Araoyinbo Oluwadare and Gabriel Awosanmi, for allegedly aiding and abetting human trafficking. Spokesman of the agency, Mr Sunday James, announced this in a statement. NAN reported that Oluwadare, a Senior Inspector of Immigration, and Awosanmi, an Immigration Assistant 1, were arrested at the Lagos international airport on Thursday night. Should President Buhari seek reelection in 2019? (Nigerian Street Interview) - on Legit.ng TV Source: Legit - The group managing director of the NNPC, Maikanti Baru, says NNPC will be going into the deeper Maiduguri sub-basin to acquire more 3D seismic data as soon as normalcy returns to the Chad basin - The corporation said it will work closely with security agencies in its bid to resume oil exploration in the Chad Basin Four oil and gas wells were being planned for drilling on the Gongola Basin to further test the prospects identified around the Kolmani River-1, Nasara-1 and Kuzari-1 in 2018, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has disclosed. The group managing director of the NNPC, Maikanti Baru, made the disclosure on Tuesday, March 20, after being conferred with the honourary fellowship of the Society in Kano, Daily Trust reports. Baru in a statement signed by NNPC spokesman, Ndu Ughamadu, said the drilling of the wells would go on while it awaits the return of normalcy to the Chad Basin. READ ALSO: JAMB releases results of over 1.5m 2018 UTME candidates He stated that the corporation planned to drill four wells in areas that it has acquired 1, 961kmsq 3D seismic data out of 3,550kmsq planned. He said NNPC would be going into the deeper Maiduguri sub-basin to acquire more 3D seismic data as soon as normalcy returns to the Chad basin. While waiting for normalcy to return to the Chad Basin, we have stepped up efforts in the Lower Benue trough. So far, we have acquired 20km of 2D data out of the planned 455km 2d seismic data," Baru said. I pledge on behalf of the NNPC that their sacrifice shall not be in vain. There is no better way to honour the efforts of our gallant heroes than to continue the good work they died for." PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Legit.ng earlier reported that NNPC said it will work closely with security agencies in its bid to resume oil exploration in the Chad Basin. The group managing director of NNPC, Dr Maikanti said the resumption of oil exploration activities was imminent and the corporation would work with security agencies to remobilise to Chad Basin and continue their work. Former NNPC group managing director Andrew Yakubu in court over fraud allegations on Legit.ng TV Source: Legit.ng - The sacked coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) retired Brig-Gen Paul Boroh, has been arrested - Boroh was arrested by the EFCC and Office of the National Security Adviser - The sum $9 million was discovered at his residence few hours after his arrest Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), have discovered $9 million cash at the residence of the sacked coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), retired Brig-Gen Paul Tarelah Boroh. Boroh, who was special adviser on Niger Delta to President Muhammadu Buhari has also been arrested, NAN reports. Legit.ng notes that the discovery of the cash was made a few hours after his arrest by a combined team of EFCC and operatives of ONSA READ ALSO: Israeli prime minister Netanyahu describes African migrants as worse threat than jihadists The head, media and publicity of EFCC, Wilson Uwujiaren, confirmed the arrest and cash recovery in response to enquiries. A senior security agent said Boroh was picked up from his home in Gwarinpa, Abuja, on Monday, March 19. He was reported to have been taken back to his residence at about 3am on Tuesday, March 20, by the security operatives who raided his house for hours and made the cash discovery of $9 million at his home. He has been remanded in the custody of the EFCC. The senior security agent said: The former adviser was driven to his home in an unmarked car after his arrest. His home was searched for several hours and about $9 million cash was discovered in several safe boxes in several parts of the house. The combined team of EFCC and the national security adviser operatives were very thorough with the search. Indeed, at a point, the operatives broke all the locks in the home including his wifes closet. The recovered cash has been deposited at the Office of the NSA. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that President Muhammadu Buhari sacked Brigadier-General Paul Boroh (Rtd) from his position as coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) for former Niger Delta militants. The development was contained in a statement by Femi Adesina, the special adviser to the president on media and publicity on Tuesday, March 13. The president announced Professor Charles Quaker Dokubo as the new coordinator of the programme. He also ordered the national security adviser to carry out a full investigation into the financial engagement of the programme since 2015. The EFCC stage a walk against corruption - on Legit.ng TV Source: Legit - The reasons Senator Shehu Sani was not punished for exposing lawmakers' jumbo pay has been revealed - Sani had recently said that he and his colleagues received N13.5 million monthly as running cost - A source in the Senate was quoted to have said that one of the reasons Sani was left unpunished was that he is not against the reordered election sequence Five reasons have been adduced as the reason a senator representing Kaduna central, Shehu Sani, has gone unpunished for revealing his and other federal lawmakers' jumbo pay. Daily Trust reports that Sani, who chairs the Senate committee on local and foreign debts, revealed the jumbo pay of the federal lawmakers regarded as hallowed secret. Legit.ng gathered that in a recent interview, he said he and his colleagues received N13.5 million monthly as running cost and N750,000 as basic salary. READ ALSO: Magnificent mansion allegedly belonging to Nigerian senator (photos) The disclosure confirmed an exclusive report by Daily Trust that showed that the running cost of senators and Reps gulped N46 billion annually. Rather than being castigated, Sani was indirectly commended by the Senate through a statement tagged Senators salary: Shehu Sani said nothing new. Signed by the Senate spokesman, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, the Senate said Sani did not disclose anything new as the figure he gave out about running cost of the offices of senators was contained in various line items and expenditure heads of the budget of the National Assembly which had been made public. It was reported that the budget of the National Assembly that had been shrouded in secrecy for over a decade was made public last year. It was however raised from N115billion to N125billion for the period under review. Contrary to the reports that filtered round that the activist-turned lawmaker was rebuked by his colleagues at an executive session of the Senate last Tuesday, it was gathered that his issue was not even on the agenda of the meeting. The session, presided over by Senate President Bukola Saraki, started by 11.07am and ended by 11.36am. At end of the session, the senators were seen in groups discussing. Sources at the meeting said the issue was not discussed. A senator said: Nobody discussed Sani even though we had our reservations but what can we do? He is one of the dons in the Senate even though a first timer. He also said that Sani was in the good books of the powers that be in the upper chamber. He is one of the corruption fighters in the Senate. Remember the way he dealt with the issue of the sacked Secretary of the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir David Lawal. As the chairman of the ad hoc panel, he ensured that everything was perfectly done. Thats why when President Muhammadu Buhari referred the ex-SGFs matter for further probe, nothing different came out of it, he said. Another senator said any attempt to punish Senator Sani will only expose the Senate to more attacks in view of the negative perception of the lawmakers pay package. For the issue to be discussed, it has to be raised on the floor of the Senate through a point of order. Who will do this? The backlash that will follow it will be deadly especially for those of us that are from the north; the persons constituents will deal with him, he said. He added that Sani also escaped the hammer because, he is not a member of those who are against the reordered election sequence. If he is in Senator Abdullahi Adamus camp, by now his case will be in the ethics committee. But because he is not, he is free, he said. It was also gathered that Sani, who was the President of the Civil Rights Congress (CRC), was left unpunished because he is neither pro-Buhari nor pro-Villa cabals. PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 new app He is seen as fighting common enemies with the Senates power brokers. He has issues with the Kaduna state governor and the powers that be in the Senate do. So he is seen as being on the same page in terms of fighting enemies, another lawmaker said. Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that Senator Shehu Sani, representng Kaduna central senatorial district, said he revealed the running costs of Nigerian lawmakers to maintain honour and credibility of the National Assembly and not to cause controversy in the parliament. Should the Nigerian Senate be scrapped? - on Legit.ng TV Source: Legit.ng The military on Wednesday, March 21, deployed helicopters to Dapchi community, where Boko Haram insurgents returned the 110 schoolgirls abducted from Government Girls Science and Technical College Dapchi. Daily Trust reports that the major entrance to the community has also been blocked by security operatives. READ ALSO: Magnificent mansion allegedly belonging to Nigerian senator (photos) Legit.ng gathered that Boko Haram in the early hours of Wednesday, March 21, returned the abducted schoolgirls of Government Girls Science and Technical College Dapchi. The chairman of the abducted schoolgirls parent, Bashir Manzo, confirmed to Daily Trust he has found his daughter and have taken her to hospital. He said the girls were returned hour ago this morning. The Yobe state police commissioner, Abdumaliki Sunmonu said they have dispatched police to verify whether the girls have been returned. Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that the Nigerian presidency, on Wednesday, March 21, confirmed it is aware of the release of the students of Government Girls Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe state, by their alleged abductors, the Boko Haram terrorists. PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 new app Boko Haram Kidnappings: Will Buhari bring back Dapchi Girls? | - on Legit.ng TV Source: Legit.ng - A man reportedly drowned in a water fall on a work-related trip - According to reports, he was a poverty alleviation activist working with an NGO before his death - His wedding was slated for August, just a few months away The family of Steven Kizza has been thrown into mourning after he reportedly drowned in a water fall in Aruu Falls, Gulu district of Uganda while on a business trip. According to reports, Kizza who worked with an NGO based in Kamwokya, Kampala before his death, had travelled to Gulu. While on the trip, together with friends, Kizza decided to go the water fall to have a good time. However, what was supposed to be filled with memories went south after he slipped down the water falls and by the time this friends realized he was actually slipping from life, it was too late to rescue him. READ ALSO: Meet 86-year-old grandmother Helen Ruth Winkle who loves to slay on social media Moments before the tragic incidence, he had taken a few photos with his friends obviously having a good time, unaware of his fate to come. Kizza sitting at the extreme left, with friends Source: New Vision READ ALSO: Lady rejects boyfriend's public marriage proposal at Accra mall, pours water on him Steven Kizza with his bride to be Source: New Vision A friend of the deceased, Fredrick Mugabi, says Kizzas wedding was scheduled for August, 2018 and wedding meetings were already going on. Man drowns few months to his wedding in Uganda PAY ATTENTION: Read best news on Nigeria's #1 news app Nigerian plane crash survivor Kechi Okwuchi speaks about life after the accident on Legit.ng TV: Source: Legit Fatsima Abdullahi, one of the 91 Dapchi girls recently released by the Boko Haram insurgents has granted a telephone interview to the press. In a telephone conversation with one Modu Geidam, Fatsima Abdullahi, who was released along with other girls to Dapchi in the early hours of Wednesday, March 21, confirmed that truly, five of the abducted students died in the Boko Haram camp. However, Fatsima claimed that she only knew two of the girls that died, and identified them as Aisha and Maimuna (no last name). READ ALSO: APC hails return of abducted Dapchi school girls Recall that 110 students of Government Girls Science Technical College (GGSTC), Dapchi were on February 19, 2018 kidnapped by Boko Haram insurgents. The 91 girls were however brought back their abductors on Wednesday, March 21 and dropped at the village square according to several reports. Fatsima, a 15-year-old SS1 student of the school was number 73 on the list of the abducted students published by the Federal Ministry of Information, Daily Trust reports. She claimed the abducted girls were kept in an "underground space" were even aircraft couldn't spot them. PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app She said the five girls died due to the congestion in the vehicle which they were transported in after they were abducted from school. Legit.ng previously reported that the Adamawa state government has expressed joy over the release of Dapchi school girls by Boko Haram. Speaking to Newsmen on the development, the commissioner for information and strategy, Ahmad Sajoh, said it was good news to the government. Boko Haram Kidnappings: Will Buhari bring back Dapchi Girls? | Legit.ng Source: Legit Nigeria - Mama Boko Haram, Aisha Wakil, is excited over the release of some of the Dapchi girls - Wakil is optimistic that the abducted Chibok girls would be released soon - She thanks the federal government and all those who contributed to the release of the girls A human right activist, Aisha Wakil, popularly called Mama Boko Haram, on Wednesday, March 21, expressed joy over the release of the Dapchi school girls from captivity of the terrorist group after their abduction on February 19. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Wakil, who appeared highly elated, said that she received the news of the release of the girls with great joy. READ ALSO: Breaking: Boko Haram reportedly releases Dapchi schoolgirls The activist commanded the federal government and other parties who contributed to the development and expressed the hope that the remaining girls including Chibok girls would also be released soon. I am highly elated over the release of the girls, it is a welcome development, she said. Wakil had earlier indicated interest to work towards the release of the abducted girls. The report also quotes Mallam Bashir Manzo, the chairman of the Parents Association of the Dapchi Abducted Girls, as expressing happiness over the development adding that they were currently taking a headcount of the girls, adding most of them had returned to their homes. It was learnt that Maina Musa and Ayuba Alamson, parents of abducted Chibok school girls, expressed joy over the development as they tasked the government to secure the release of the remaining school girls in insurgents captivity. PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 new app It is disheartening on our part to see that our remaining children are still languishing in the hands of Boko Haram insurgents in the past four years, Alamson said. Legit.ng earlier reported that the Nigerian presidency, on Wednesday, March 21, confirmed it is aware of the release of the students of Government Girls Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe state, by their alleged abductors, the Boko Haram terrorists. It also reported that the All Progressives Congress (APC) hailed the federal government for the return of the schoolgirls abducted from Government Girls Science Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe state by Boko Haram. In a statement sent to Legit.ng by the national publicity secretary of the party, Malam Bolaji Abdullahi, the party said the prompt release of the girls is another solid demonstration of the political will of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led APC administration to secure the lives of all Nigerians." Lagos Police Commissioner parades suspected criminals | Legit.ng TV Source: Legit - Eleven soldiers have reportedly lost their lives in an attack by armed bandits in Kaduna state - Armed bandits were said to have attacked a Nigerian military detachment at Kamfanin Doka - Three soldiers reportedly sustained injuries during the attack An attack by armed bandits on a Nigerian military detachment has reportedly left eleven Nigerian soldiers dead. The bandits reportedly attacked the detachment at Kamfanin Doka, along Funtua road in Birnin Gwari local government area of Kaduna state, on the night of Tuesday, March 20, Premium Times reports. Legit.ng notes that a former chairman of the local government who pleaded anonymity confirmed the incident. According to him, three other soldiers and nine members of a vigilante group sustained gunshot injuries. READ ALSO: Cabinet minister suspended by Zambian parliament for slapping lawmaker He said: The bandits attacked the military base at Kamfanin Doka along Funtua road. 11 soldiers lost their lives while three sustained injuries. The bandits also ambushed our vigilantes at Maganga, about 44 kilometres from Birnin Gwari this morning (Wednesday, March 21) when they were rushing there to assist the soldiers. About nine sustained gunshot injuries. They were rushed to General Hospital Birnin Gwari for treatment. He stated that the bandits rode to the scene on motorbikes at 10.05pm on the night of Tuesday, March 20, to engage the soldiers in gun fights. Confirming the incident, a religious scholar in the area stated that many people were reportedly killed. He said: The incident occurred at Maganga area in the night and the bandits killed soldiers there and others that sustained injuries." The spokesperson for the Nigerian Army, One Mechanised Division, Muhammed Dole, said: We are already in the bush trying to ascertain the situation. We will issue a statement, please be patient. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that 11 Nigerian soldiers died and one was confirmed missing following an attack on them by gun runners and armed bandits in Kopa, Dagma and Gagaw villages of Bosso local government area in Niger. In a statement issued by the spokesperson of the army, Colonel Sani Kukasheka Usman, he explained that the troops were on an assignment to safeguard the area when they came under heavy attack. Nigerian Air Force operations against Boko Haram - on Legit.ng TV Source: Legit Yves here. I trust readers will be able to filter out the new Cold War assumptions in the piece to focus on the price of Germanys plans. Does anyone have an informed take on how significant the broader economic impact might be? By Tim Daiss, an oil markets analyst, journalist and author working out of the Asia-Pacific region for 12 years who has covered oil, energy markets and geopolitics for Forbes, Platts, Interfax, NewsBase, Rigzone, and the UK-based Independent (newspaper) as well as providing energy markets analysis for subscription newsletters. Originally published at OilPrice More problems are mounting for Russias oil and gas sector. This time its coming from Germany, which until recently usually gave Russias energy sector more lead way than the U.S. or other allies. But now it seems that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has also had enough. On Monday, Bloomberg reported that Merkels government is seeking to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry in Germany basically from scratch to reduce the nations dependence on supplies arriving by pipeline from Russia and Norway. Merkel backs all initiatives supporting further diversification of gas supply whether from different regions or means of transporting gas, said German Economy and Energy Ministry spokeswoman Beate Baron. The move comes as natural gas resources from the UK and the Netherlands are depleting, and Germany is forced to rely more on Russian gas. Merkels newly formed coalition has a coalition contract that among other policies sets out energy agenda including LNG for the next four years, the Bloomberg reported added. Germany, for its part, is Europes largest gas consumer. In 2015, the country consumed 7.2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data. According to the German energy research group, AG Energiebilanzen, imports account for about 90 percent of Germanys total natural gas supply, while most imports come from three countries: Russia (40 percent of total imports in 2015), Norway (21 percent) and the Netherlands (29 percent). Moreover, German companies are participating in Russias controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline, an expansion of an existing route for gas to flow from Russia to Europe under the Baltic Sea. The U.S., Poland and others have recently condemned the pipeline as a threat to European security. As Russia becomes increasingly aggressive, even reckless geopolitically, the security threat to not only the EU but to Germany is apparent, causing the country of some 83 million people to do an abrupt energy policy about face. Germanys LNG pivot also comes as a geopolitical storm between the U.K. and Russia intensifies over an alleged Moscow-orchestrated nerve-agent attack on British soil against what the BBC called a double spy and his daughter. British Prime Minister Theresa May retaliated last week by expelling Russian diplomats and seeking alternatives to Russian gas, including LNG produced at its new Arctic plant, the Yamal LNG export project. Addressing the UN Security Council last week, the U.K.s deputy UN ambassador, Jonathan Allen, accused Russia of breaking its obligations under the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The U.S. for its part also condemned the nerve agent attack. U.S. ambassador Nikki Haley said that Washington stood in absolute solidarity with Britain, citing the special relationship between the two countries and saying that Washington would always be there for the UK. Germanys Abrupt LNG Pivot However, until recently many in Germany accused the U.S., notably President Trump, of using U.S.-sourced LNG as a geopolitical weapon to challenge Russias decades old dominance of European gas markets an accusation that played perfectly into the hands of Russian energy companies and even Vladimir Putin. When Trump singed fresh sanctions against Russias energy sector in August, Uniper a German utility and one of Europes largest energy firms said the new sanctions were an American economic move as much as a political one. The core reason (for the sanctions) is strategic economic interests, meaning the targeted dominance of the US in energy markets, Uniper CEO Klaus Schaefer told journalists shortly after Trump signed the sanctions bill. Uniper is one of five companies that have invested in Nord Stream 2. Brigitte Zypries, Germanys economy minister, claimed last year that the sanctions violated international law and said that the EU should take action against the U.S. Of course we dont want a trade war. But it is important the European Commission now looks into countermeasures, she said. The Americans cant punish German companies because they have business interests in another country. Cost Factors Could Impede Pivot However, any Germany pivot to LNG away from Russian gas will come at a cost. Shipping LNG by one of several suppliers, including Qatar, the U.S. or Angola to name a few, is simply more expensive than Russian piped gas. While Russia already has an extensive pipeline network in place, LNG is more expensive when transportation, liquefaction and regasification costs are added. Using a Henry Hub gas price of $2.85/MMBtu as a base, Russian energy giant Gazprom recently estimated that adding processing and transportation costs, the price in Europe would reach $6/MMBtu a steep markup. Henry Hub gas prices are currently trading at $2.657/MMBtu. Over the last 52-week period U.S. gas has traded between $2.64/MMBtu and $3.82/MMBtu. Russian gas sells for around $5/MMBtu in European markets. Moreover, Russian gas exporter Gazprom is also moving away from oil-indexation for gas prices to a European gas hub indexation, which will allow additional price savings and unfortunately for Germany an incentive to stick with Russian gas, even if its geopolitically distasteful. Meanwhile, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said yesterday that Russia is Europes most flexibly and reliable source of energy that is needed. First population-scale sequencing project explores platypus history PhysOrg (Chuck L) New evidence for plume beneath Yellowstone National Park PhysOrg (Chuck L) Prosecution Futures There are still 100,000 pay phones in America CNN. I find it a disgrace that they have been removed from airports. If you fail to put phone on airplane mode when flying, you drain your battery because your phone goes into maximum power use mode when it is trying to find a tower. Macular degeneration: Ive been given my sight back BBC. Stem cell treatment. Need a CT scan? Here is why you should ask your doctor if it is absolutely necessary Scroll (J-LS). Aieee. North Korea Why the Indian poultry industry is chicken about American imports Scroll (J-LS) Brexit The Italian Election London Review of Books New Cold War On Being a Dissenting Voice in 2018 Craig Murray. Chuck L: Fascinating description of attempts to shame and gaslight. Chuck provides this example. The Guido Fawkess website stab at denigrating Murray because of his bipolar disorder: A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness. Did British Police Find Putins Passport at Scene of Salisbury Poison Attack? Snopes (Kevin W) Russian Elections Show How Russia is Becoming Great Again Russia Insider. Contrast this with the meme that Putin is a dictator and the elections are rigged. Mind you, you can still be authoritarian and yet democratically elected, a combination that the US refused to admit can exist when said authoritarian is not playing ball with the US. Admittedly, past Russian elections have been criticized, but I am not sure how much was bona fide (clearly at least some) and how much has been exaggerated. Kevin W: Key section: Equally notable was the manner in which the elections were run: the process was public and transparent, using paper ballots counted by hand. Polling places were equipped with video cameras. Ballot-stuffing, which was a problem with previous elections, was detected in a couple of places, and the tainted results were disqualified.' Syraqistan Big Brother is Watching You Watch Orbitz Says Legacy Travel Site Likely Hacked, Affecting 880K US News Trump Transition Medicare for All has broad support but pollsters worry that it hasnt been tested Washington Post (UserFriendly Congress may pass background check legislation in funding bill The Hill US lawmakers prepare to scale back legal shield for websites Financial Times (David L) Chinese Corporation Alibaba Joins Group Ghostwriting American Laws Intercept (Chuck L) Lipinski wins Illinois primary fight The Hill Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner Promised a Criminal Justice Revolution. Hes Exceeding Expectations Intercept (UserFriendly) Kill Me Now Kamala Harris Is Dreaming Big Vogue (J-LS). Note that all the fashion magazines, in the words of a fashionista who reads them all. ordered readers to vote for Hillary. The dreaming big suggests Vogue is leaving its 2020 options open. Facebook Fracas. I find it delicious that what we had deemed to be Cambridge Analytica grossly overhyping its capabilities is being used to fry them and Facebook. New Austin incident does not appear to be related to serial bombings, police say ABC Ubers Killer Car Facebook, Uber and the end of the Great American Tech Delusion Asia Times GOLDMAN SACHS: Machines have replaced humans and their impact on the next financial crisis could be devastating Business Insider (David L) Class Warfare Antidote du jour. Randy G asks for more pictures of charming reptiles and provides one of his own: This is my photo of my pet (captive born) Australian blue-tongue skink. And a bonus antidote: See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here Primary school children from across the island of Ireland have expressed their delight at the official announcement that Pope Francis is coming to Ireland in August. One little boy from Tipperary, called Paidi, has invited the Pope to try a game of hurling during the visit. Just across the border in Doon, Fionn says he is praying that it wont rain in August. Welcome messages from Irish children have been gathered together in a beautifully produced book called Failte Pope Francis for the official papal visit as part of the World Meeting of Families in Dublin. Only a young child would dare to invite the Pope over for a cup of tea and a bun, to tell him his popemobile rocks or to suggest a bit of hurling! This book started when The Irish Catholic newspaper launched a competition which asked the children aged 6 to 9 to draw a picture and write a letter of welcome addressed to the Pope. The response from primary schools was so overwhelming, one cuter than the next, that the decision was made to publish a book with the most engaging entries. The letters range from poetry to recommendations for where Pope Francis should visit in Ireland and what he should wear or eat. We even have an entry as Gaelige. The incredible variety of pictures of Pope Francis include him piloting a plane through space and meeting a leprechaun under a rainbow. Quotes: Have you somewhere to stay when you come to Ireland? We have a spare room in our house and you could meet all my family and friends from school, Aoife Murphy (7), Dundalk, Co. Louth. I will say a prayer that it wont rain in August, Fionn (9), Doon, Co. Limerick. I would love it if you come to visit us here in Northern Ireland. When Pope John Paul II came to Ireland there was a lot of fighting here but not now, Shay McAleenan (9), Rathfriland, Co. Down. I hope you dont get a headache with everyone screaming! Daniel Brogan (9), Oranmore, Co. Galway. I want to look after the poor and animals and want to be more like you, Erin Healy (9), Coolock, Dublin 5. All royalties from Failte Pope Francis go to Our Ladys Childrens Hospital, Crumlin. In February and March this year, a Canadian Armed Forces Explosive Threat Training Team conducted an Explosive Threat Search training course for trainers of the Iraqi Security Forces. This course was held at the Iraqi Army Bomb Disposal School in Besmaya, Iraq, within the framework of NATOs training and capacity partnership building with the Iraqi Security Forces. It was developed in accordance with Canadian Armed Forces doctrine and standards to assist the Iraqi Security Forces develop the skills-set to locate and identify explosive hazards. Seventeen students from various units across the Iraqi Security Forces came to the Bomb Disposal School from front line units, bringing with them a great deal of experience built on the battlefield. Canadian trainers quickly formed a sound professional relationship and bond with the Iraqi students. The students engaged in multiple search techniques and enhanced their training capacity so that they can return to their units and pass these skills on to their peers. The students were motivated and experienced; we learned as much from them as they did from us over the five weeks of training. It was an excellent opportunity to work with them in a peer-based learning environment, a Canadian Armed Forces Explosive Threat Training Team Leader said. Following the liberation of Iraq from Daesh, ensuring the safety of public areas and buildings is vital to Iraqs lasting security. Graduates of the course will return to their units to conduct explosive threat searches, an inherently dangerous and challenging task. These Iraqi soldiers will be physically putting themselves between these threats and the population in order to increase safety and security, and limit civilian casualties. Canada and other NATO Allies continue to conduct training activities to strengthen Iraqi security institutions and protect the local population, whilst at the same time helping to form a new class of Iraqi trainers, who will carry the work forward. The Canadian Armed Forces combat engineers have been giving instruction on dealing with various explosive threats since fall 2017 at the Iraq Armys bomb disposal school. That mission has been a real success and has now been extended to the fall of 2018. Helping the Iraqis deal with these threats is an important contribution to Iraq, the Coalition and NATO, Brigadier-General Andrew Jayne, Joint Task Force Iraq Commander pointed out. In addition to search skills, Canada has also instructed students in the defeat of explosive devices, first aid, cordon drills and instructional techniques. All training has been completed under the umbrella of NATOs training and capacity building effort in full coordination with the Iraqi security forces and national authorities. The President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Peter Maurer, was welcomed to NATO Headquarters by Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday (21 March 2018). The visit comes just over a year after the Secretary Generals historic first visit to ICRC Headquarters in Geneva. Wednesdays meeting marked a continuation of regular dialogue between the leaders and touched on shared priorities for NATO and the ICRC, and the collaboration between the two organizations. President Maurer also addressed the North Atlantic Council. During their meeting, the Secretary General underscored the value of the dialogue and cooperation that exists between NATO and the ICRC. He noted that consultations with the ICRC have been particularly valuable in the context of the development of NATOs Policy on the Protection of Civilians and that the ICRCs participation in NATO exercises and training events was also highly appreciated. The leaders agreed that the dialogue on humanitarian and operational issues between the two organizations was progressing well and would continue. Addressing NATO Ambassadors at the North Atlantic Council meeting, President Maurer reiterated the importance to the ICRC of the humanitarian and operational dialogue with NATO. He continued by outlining ICRC priorities and challenges in the field, including in countries where NATO is also present, such as Afghanistan and Iraq. The NATO Secretary General, Mr. Jens Stoltenberg will meet the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, H.E. Mr. Andrej Babis on Thursday, 22 March 2018. Media Advisory 11:15 Joint press point by NATO Secretary General and the Prime Minister Main entrance The press point will be streamed live on the NATO website. Still and video imagery will be available on the NATO website after the event. Follow us on Twitter (@NATOPress, @NATODepspox and @jensstoltenberg.) (Natural News) Three students at a Maryland high school are in critical condition Tuesday morning after one male student brought a handgun to school and shot a female student while striking another male student. According to local media, the attack occurred at Great Mills High School in Great Mills, Md. The shooter, himself a student, exchanged fire with a school resource officer (SRO); the student was wounded in the exchange. Deputies were called to the school shortly before 8 a.m.; the school is located about 60 miles southeast of Washington, D.C. St. Marys County Sheriff Tim Cameron told local media his office has prepared for this kind of incident, but added that despite the quick response from the SRO, two students were still shot. You train to respond to this and you hope that you never ever have to, he said. This is the realization of your worst nightmare that, in a school, that our children could be attacked. And so as quickly as that SRO responded and engaged, theres grievous injuries to two students. Now begins the second phase of this operation, and thats the background and the investigation and the attempt for the school to return to normal, he added. Okay, so those are the facts thus far about this latest incident in what has become an epidemic in America: School shootings involving armed students. Well no doubt find out more about it in the days ahead, though initially, it sounds as though this could be a case of jilted love. The real tragedy here outside of the fact that there are parents who are shocked to their core over this is the fact that, as in past shootings, this one will also be politicized. Some will argue that this was another gun-free zone, but it wasnt, actually; there was an armed SRO in the school and the officer apparently reacted quickly and appropriately to the situation. The SRO at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., by comparison, turned the school into a gun-free zone when he failed to respond to alleged shooter Nikolas Cruz. So while this is actually a great example of how a good person with a gun can stop a bad person with a gun, what do you want to wager that the Alt-Left will turn this tragedy into yet another campaign against the National Rifle Association? How long do you think it will take before Marxist Democrats once again level accusations against the NRA, blaming the gun-rights group for this shooting as they have been blamed for past shootings though there hasnt been a single instance where an active NRA member turned into a mass murder. I give it less than 24 hours. Id love to be wrong but Im betting I wont be. (Related: NRAs Dana Loesch reveals why the so-called journalists at CNN are some of the lowest forms of life walking the planet today.) The Left will blame the NRA because the Left refuses to blame its culturally destructive ideology, which is the real culprit behind this rash of school shootings. Think about it: Before the Left purged God and the Pledge of Allegiance and personal responsibility and civics and self-reliance and self-sacrifice and traditional America out of the public schools, we didnt have these incidents. We didnt have kids killing kids at all, for that matter at least not on the scale were seeing. Before the Left created its victim mentality and destroyed young peoples ability to cope with everyday life, we didnt have school shootings. We had fist fights and name-calling, sure, but thats much more normal than bringing a gun to school. I cant recall anyone from my high school days being killed by a fist. And in those days, a lot of us came to school with guns in our cars and pickups after we spent the early morning hours hunting. So this Maryland shooting isnt the NRAs fault, just as the previous shootings have not been the NRAs fault (full disclosure Im a member). Our society is sick, and its been poisoned by the Left. But as usual, they will refuse to own up to it. J.D. Heyes is editor of The National Sentinel and a senior writer for Natural News and News Target. Sources include: NBCWashington.com TheNationalSentinel.com (Natural News) A crazy transgender person with a violent past has filed a lawsuit against a Christian shelter for abused women, located in Anchorage, Alaska, which he claims refused him entry simply because of his made-up gender identity. But heres the truth: Timothy Coyle, a 52-year-old headcase who now identifies as Samantha, is a biological male and this means he has no business trying to set up shop at The Hope Center, the womens shelter that hes now suing for alleged discrimination. According to reports, Coyle had previously been kicked out of nearby Brother Francis Shelter, which accepts both men and women (and apparently those with gender dysphoria), after he got into a drunken brawl with another shelter occupant. He then tried to move to The Hope Center, which sent him away with money for a taxi because he was in dire need of emergency medical care. Though Coyle was referred to another shelter that accepts both men and women, he decided to return to The Hope Center and demand once again that he be allowed to stay. When he was turned away a second time, he apparently filed a complaint with the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission claiming that he was a victim of LGBT persecution. His plan is to capitalize on a Trojan Horse bill forced through the Alaska legislature, in large part with the help of the corrupt American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. In other words, by simply putting on womens clothes and calling himself Samantha, a troubled man with a violent criminal past could be forced upon a Christian charity and the women it is trying to shield from violent men, comments John Nolte for Breitbart. Look out: Violent men everywhere will now claim transgender rights to gain access to more female victims Even just 10 years ago, there wouldnt have been a court in the land that would have taken such a case seriously. But because of Alaskas anti-discrimination law, AO 96, Coyle apparently has legal bearing to move forward with his ridiculous complaint. This is why Alaskan voters are being urged to rescind the law, which for all intents and purposes is just a Trojan Horse for deranged male aggressors to gain easier access to female victims by simply claiming that theyre also females. As reported by Must Read Alaska, a movement is afoot to scrap such laws and restore order and decency to Alaska to prevent this type of thing from gaining a foothold. Keep in mind that The Hope Center is a private institution, and Coyles lawsuit hinges upon public accommodations. This alone will likely kill his case, regardless. Still, the public needs to wake up and see the writing on the wall with stuff like this. A yes vote will restrict (transgender) access to public facilities such as bathrooms, locker rooms and now, it appears, battered womens shelters on the basis of sex at birth, rather than gender identity, reports Must Read Alaska about the new ballot initiative to overturn AO 96. It will allow private establishments such as businesses and religious organizations the right to make their own bathroom rules. As for The Hope Center, it will continue to do its best to only accept real women with legitimate shelter needs while maintaining a safe and therapeutic environment. The sad irony is that many of its shelter members have a past that involved horrible traumas at the hands of men like Coyle which is exactly why he has no business being there. While not fully repealing the misguided law, our intent is to bring balance and create equal protections for people of faith who want to live and work in the public marketplace without fear of governmental intrusion and legal intimidation, wrote Jim Minnery from the Alaska Family Council back in 2015 as part of an ongoing effort to repeal AO 96. Sources for this article include: Breitbart.com NaturalNews.com MustReadAlaska.com (Natural News) The massive depletion of tropical rainforests have driven many species of tropical flora and fauna into extinction. But a recent study of bat populations in the Brazilian Amazon suggested that displaced survivors from primary forests could potentially recover if there are secondary forests that can take them in, reported Science Daily. This is good news for the biodiversity of the worlds remaining tropical rainforests. It proves that much of the damage humans dealt to wildlife populations can still be undone if forests are given the time to heal. The study began with a warning that the populations of species from primary forests in the Amazon region have suffered heavy losses following 15 years of humans burning, clearing, and disrupting their habitats. (Related: Another climate concern debunked: Amazon rainforest trees found to be surprisingly drought resistant.) In the 30 years that have passed since those species fled their denuded homes, secondary regrowth has made good progress at recolonizing the regions. With the restoration of the secondary forests, many of those species came back and began replenishing their numbers. If you compare the time periods, it is apparent that taking a long-term view is paramount to uncovering the complexity of biodiversity in human-modified landscapes, remarked senior researcher Dr. Christoph Meyer of the University of Salford regarding this slow but steady recovery process. Bats from old-growth forests return once secondary forests regenerate Dr. Meyer and his team looked at 50 species of bats that lived in the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFFP) in the Brazilian Amazon. They estimated their study population to be around 6,000 individual animals. Bats were the perfect model group for the experiment. The flying mammals comprised 20 percent of all global mammal species, displayed a wide variety of food-seeking behavior, and are very sensitive to any changes in their habitat. The responses exhibited by bats offer important insights into the responses of other taxonomic groups, said Ricardo Rocha of the University of Lisbon in his capacity as the lead author of the study. According to Rocha, the recovery of the bat populations in the BDFFP has correlations with the pattern for beetle and bird communities of similar areas in the Amazon. These parallel trends reinforce the idea that the benefits of forest regeneration are widespread, and suggest that habitat restoration can ameliorate some of the harm inflicted by humans on tropical wildlife, he suggested. Without refuges, endangered animals will go extinct In comparison, the international research group noted harsh declines in the number of rodents that lived in the Chiew Larn reservoir in southern Thailand. The area was flooded in the 1980s to create a reservoir for Rajjaprabha Dam, a 240-megawatt hydroelectric dam. Unlike the flight-capable Amazon bats, the Thai rodents were mostly stranded in the forest islands formed by the new Chiew Larn artificial lake. Despite government efforts to airlift them and other affected fauna to safer areas, many of these native species went extinct in the course of two decades. The recovery observed at the Amazon was mostly due to the recolonization of previously deforested areas and forest fragments by old-growth specialist bats, Rocha explained regarding the bats good fortune. He believed the regenerated secondary forests are responsible for improving biodiversity and increasing the food supplies in the BDFFP. These restored rainforests can now support the energy requirements of a larger number of species, as proven by the return and recovery of bat populations. The BDFFP is the worlds biggest, oldest, and most expensive ongoing experiment in forest fragmentation. Its vast scale allows researchers to identify complexities that take a long time to surface. More good news about the environment await your eyes at Environ.news. Sources include: ScienceDaily.com Nature.com A Southern California city wants to exempt itself from a state law that limits cooperation between local police and federal immigration agents. The city of Los Alamitos voted 4 to 1 on the proposed ordinance at a meeting on Monday, making moves to exempt itself from the California Values Act, SB54. A large crowd gathered and many voiced their opinions on the ordinance. The ordinance said city councilmembers have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution and that California's so-called sanctuary law may conflict with it and federal law. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions sued California earlier this month over the law. Loyola Marymount University law professor Kathleen Kim says the argument in the city's proposed ordinance is flawed. Los Alamitos is a city of 12,000 people about 25 miles southeast of Los Angeles. In a room inside The Terraces senior home in Los Altos, more than a dozen senior citizens were earning their wings. For this lesson, activities director J.C. Guzman assumed the role of flight instructor directing his charges on the finer points of taking off, steering and issuing perhaps his most important instruction when to abort. With that covered, the group began taking turns operating the aircraft a $39 drone which over the next 45 minutes offered ample evidence that even an entry level drone can take an awful lot of punishment. If you hear me say abort, Guzman said holding the remote control, what I want you to do with the left is bring it all the way to its resting point. No sooner had the small drone lifted-off from the flowery carpet in the activities room, than Guzman utterered the first of what would be many, many calls to abort. As the newly minted pilot watched in wonderment and then horror, the small device lifted straight up into the ceiling where its quadrant of spinning propellers continued to spin for the heavens pinning it in ceiling limbo. Whoa, whoa! Guzman shouted, before commanding abort abort! Suddenly the drone plunged to the carpet a tiny propeller flying through the air traveling steadier and farther than the actual drone had. The roomful of aspiring fliers broke into laughter. It didnt matter that the group included several actual airplane pilots, and even a few former flight attendants all seemed to be on the same tarmac when it came to the skills of navigating the small flying machine. Were learning something new, sharpening up our minds, Guzman announced to the group before handing off the control to the next flier. The other added benefits to it are learning how to relax, how to focus better. With that, the drone next careened into a wall, skipped off the piano before attacking a visiting journalist as Guzman yelled abort, abort. The woman at the control offered her apologies as well as her flying history: Last time, I flew it out the door and down the hall. Resident Merritt Benson showed-up to the class carrying laminated photos of the B-36 bomber hed flown once. As he seized the control of the drone, the device resembled the bomb more than the bomber, rising to the ceiling before plunging back to the ground in an explosion of parts. I can barely operate one of those, Benson surrendered. I could still probably fly that airplane. Guzman, who has been running weekly classes at the facility, said drone flying offers many skills for seniors aside from an afternoon of chuckles and the impromptu exercise of sprinting to escape an errant one. You know if they want to take it as a hobby per se, Guzman said, they could use photography, bird watching, you name it. Resident Elizabeth Chang said the challenge of focusing on a target thats bounding around the room like a scared rabbit has improved her eyesight. I used to have a double vision, Chang said, and now i can see everything straight. Gregory Hyver suffered a right brain stroke eight years back and thought the class might help his hand-eye coordination. He planned to come back to the room to practice when no human obstacles would be present. Its got me inspired to get my own, Hyver said, so I can spend a lot of time up here with my own. Some seniors asked Guzman whether they should be flying a drone at their age at all. Sure, why not? he answered. If I learn how to fly it we all can learn how to fly it. Chang said she was also considering getting her own drone so she could fly it with her grandchildren. I think there is no difference with age, Chang said. Its only, see if youre willing to do it or not. After one flier narrowly buzzed a row of fellow seniors, a retired flight attendant took up the control deftly maneuvering the small whirring device into the center of the room where it gracefully hovered. Youre a natural, someone said as the device floated gingerly to the earth in the first controlled landing of the day. Minutes later, the drone was back to its erratic ways, slamming into a wall so hard one of its propellers flew into a womans silvery hair. Guzman headed for the crash site chuckling as the propeller was rescued from the womans plumage, shouting above the din of laughter Abort, abort! San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin apologized Tuesday to Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White after he criticized the department's efforts to extinguish a large four-alarm blaze in North Beach on Saturday. "I apologize to Chief Hayes-White, and I intend to personally convey this to her as soon as I return from the spring legislative recess," Peskin said in a statement. He said he has a "genuine love" for his constituents, and while it was inappropriate to raise his concerns at the scene of the fire, he would reserve the right to raise more questions about the department's response. San Francisco fire officials released a statement on Monday outlining a minute-by-minute breakdown of firefighters' efforts to contain the blaze. The department said firefighters reached 659 Union St. at 7:24 p.m. and were pouring water on the fire by 7:33 p.m. Twenty minutes later, crews determined there were no people in the building and firefighters switched to a "defensive operation" to combat the blaze from outside. Firefighters would succumb to injury or death if they stayed inside the building while water was being poured into it, fire officials said. A fourth alarm was called at 8:04 p.m. The fire was contained at 9:18 p.m. and fully under control by 1:15 a.m Sunday, according to the fire department. Fire officials said the blaze is under investigation, but preliminary reports suggest it was caused by an accident. The fire impacted more than 50 workers on Columbus Avenue and Union Street, according to the mayor's office. The city activated an emergency relief fund on Monday offering $10,000 to each of the seven businesses in the fire. Coit Liquors, Ferry Plaza Seafood, Tuk Tuk Thai Cafe, The Salzburg, Rogue Ales Public House, Jack Lee Fong Insurance Agency and Michelangelo Cafe suffered water damage, fire damage or both. Eight people were displaced from their homes because of the blaze, according to the fire department. As of Sunday morning, the American Red Cross and The Salvation Army were helping people at a temporary evacuation center at 1450 Powell St. It appears Cook County voters are in favor of legalizing recreational marijuana use in Illinois. Tuesday's referendum question asked if Illinois should legalize "the cultivation, manufacture, distribution, testing, and sale of marijuana and marijuana products for recreational use by adults 21 and older." By Wednesday morning, with 98 percent of precincts reporting, results showed 68 percent of voters were in favor of the idea in the nation's second most populous county. The question on whether or not to legalize the drug for recreational use was non-binding, so the vote does not mean recreational marijuana use will automatically become legal in Chicago and Cook County's more than 130 municipalities. In the end, it is up to legislators to propose and pass a law. The referendum's results can, however, now be used to gauge public opinion and determine whether to bring legislation forward in Springfield. County commissioners voted unanimously last December to put the question on the primary ballot. The state Senate earlier this month passed a measure to put the question on ballots for statewide voters in November, according to The Chicago Tribune. The full question on primary election ballots read as follows: "Shall the State of Illinois legalize the cultivation, manufacture, distribution, testing, and sale of marijuana and marijuana products for recreational use by adults 21 and older subject to state regulation, taxation and local ordinance?" Supporters of legalization pointed to the increased tax revenue that has come with legalization, taxation and regulation in other states. Opponents often have concerns about social costs and the fact that marijuana use would remain illegal under federal law. About six in 10 Americans nationally support marijuana legalization, according to a Pew Research Center survey released earlier this year. Support has nearly doubled what it was in 2000. Recreational marijuana is now legal in Colorado, Washington, Alaska, Nevada, Oregon, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont and California. All but Vermont passed the laws in binding ballot questions between 2012 and 2016. Vermont Gov. Phil Scott in January signed into law a recreational marijuana legalization bill, the Associated Press reported. Scott's signing made Vermont the first state to legalize the drug through legislature instead of a referendum, which is the route Illinois would have to take. The rollout has not been immediate for most states, and legalization has yielded different results for different states. California voters approved legalizing recreational marijuana in 2016. The law went into effect in December 2017, but state legislators were already considering lowering the marijuana tax to fight persistent black market sales, the L.A. Times reported Thursday. On the other end of the spectrum, Colorado brought in nearly $700 million in marijuana tax revenue since its lawwhich was approved in a 2012 referendumwent into effect in 2014, according to the Colorado Department of Revenue. Democratic state Sen. Karen Spilka said Wednesday she has secured commitments from enough of her colleagues to become the next president of the Massachusetts Senate. The announcement appears to help close out a period of uncertain leadership in the Senate after Democratic Sen. Stan Rosenberg stepped down from the leadership post in December. "Senators have made clear that they want certainty in leadership to allow us to focus solely on the vitally important work to be done on behalf of the people at this time," Spilka said. "It's time to turn the page and usher in a new era of collaborative leadership in the Senate." Spilka, who is from Ashland and chairs the Senate Ways and Means Committee, said she's "deeply honored" by the support of other Democratic senators and looks forward to working with the current Senate President, Democrat Harriette Chandler of Worcester, on a "smooth transition" of power. Chandler reiterated her intention to serve as president only through the remainder of this year. She said she spoke with Spilka and congratulated her on winning the support of enough senators to succeed her. "I look forward to serving as president for the remainder of this session, working through our legislative priorities, and ensuring a smooth transition to Senator Spilka for the 2019 session," Chandler said. Spilka was able to break away from a pack of other would-be candidates for Senate president, one of the most powerful positions in state government, including fellow Democrats Sal DiDomenico of Everett, Eric Lesser of Longmeadow, and Eileen Donoghue of Lowell, now in the running to become Lowell's first female city manager. Rosenberg's decision to relinquish the presidency, initially described as temporary, came after The Boston Globe reported on allegations that his husband, Bryon Hefner, sexually harassed or abused several men, some of whom had business before the Legislature. The Senate Ethics Committee later hired a Boston law firm to investigate whether Rosenberg violated any Senate rules in connection with the allegations against Hefner. Prospects for a return by Rosenberg as senate president had seemed increasingly unlikely in recent weeks, and Wednesday's announcement appeared to end that possibility. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Rosenberg congratulated Spilka, describing her as a "skilled and committed collaborator." "In a time where we must move forward on so many critical issues, like addressing climate change, economic development and fighting income inequality, criminal justice reform and improving our public education system, I am glad to know the Senate will be led by such capable hands," Rosenberg said in a statement. Spilka was first elected to the state House in a special election in the fall of 2001. She served three years there before her election to the Senate. In January 2005, she was sworn in as the senator for the 2nd Middlesex and Norfolk district, which includes Ashland, Framingham, Franklin, Holliston, Hopkinton, Medway and Natick. In 2015, Rosenberg appointed Spilka to serve as chair of the Ways and Means Committee, which is responsible for drafting the Senate version of the state's $40 billion budget. A Boston man is facing charges after allegedly rummaging through another man's belongings after he collapsed and died at an MBTA station. MBTA police said 30-year-old Anthony Stimson has been arrested on a larceny charge after the early Wednesday morning incident. MBTA officers responded to the MBTA's Downtown Crossing station around 5 a.m. for a medical emergency, where they found an unconscious 52-year-old man. Officers tried to perform life-saving measures on the man, but paramedics who arrived on the scene said he died. An investigation into the incident allegedly showed that before officers arrived, a man, later identified as Stimson, came up to the victim as he was laying unconscious and went through and stole some belongings, including the victim's prescriptions. Police said Stimson didn't try to help the victim as he laid unconscious. Stimson was arrested on Summer Street, and officers found the prescription bottle under the victim's name on Stimson. It's unclear when he'll face a judge or if he has an attorney. A survivor of last month's shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 people dead said he and fellow students must use their "white privilege" to offset the racial disparity in the way news media covers gun violence. Speaking during a Twitter Q&A livestream Monday with fellow Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students, senior David Hogg said Parkland shooting survivors must use their platform to make sure the stories of other students across the country who experience gun violence are also heard. "There is a lot of racial disparity in the way that this is covered. If this happened in a place of a lower socio-economic status or a place like a black community, no matter how well those people spoke, I don't think the media would cover it the same," Hogg said. "We have to use our white privilege now to make sure that all of the voices all of the people that have died as a result of this and haven't been covered the same can now be heard. It's sad, but it's true. Hogg called the disparity in news coverage the "greatest obstacle" the #NeverAgain movement faces. Fellow student-turned-activist Cameron Kasky said Stoneman Douglas received widespread coverage because "we are an affluent community," and acknowledged the disproportionate effect gun violence has on people of color as well as those living in poorer communities. "Despite what happened at [Stoneman Douglas], I still walk to school some days and I don't have to worry about that kind of thing, and there are communities that do," Kasky, 17, said. "So we feel responsible to properly represent our friends in these other communities." He continued, "We are all bound by the same awful thing and we have all stared down the barrel of these guns and we have to represent those [people] that, unfortunately, were ignored." Fellow students Emma Gonzalez, Alex Wind, Jaclyn Corin and Ryan Deitsch also joined Kasky and Hogg in the livestream event. The remarks come just two days after other Parkland students visited Chicago Public School students to brainstorm ideas for the March for Our Lives demonstration that will be held in the Windy City on March 24. The Chicago Sun Times reported that at a press conference following the meeting, students highlighted the high rate of gun violence in the city, where more than 2,700 shootings took place in 2016. The benefit of incumbency was all but missing in Gov. Bruce Rauner's win in Tuesdays Illinois primary. The narrow margin of victory by the sitting governor points to fundamental problems as he heads to the November contest. Statewide, the Republican vote was depressed from what it was four years ago. There were more than 130,000 fewer votes statewide on the GOP side. Conservative challenger state Rep. Jeanne Ives won about one-third of Illinois' 102 counties, including the Republican bastion of DuPage County. Ives ultimately lost the contest statewide, earning 48.6 percent of the vote to Rauner's 51.4 percent. The hard feelings between the Ives and Rauner camps evident throughout the campaign wont go away easily. On the Democratic side, it was a very good night for J.B. Pritzker. He carried all but four counties in Illinois and his main rivals Daniel Biss and Chris Kennedy urged their supporters to rally around Pritzker in the general. But for political junkies, there may be an even bigger story than the gubernatorial race. Call it the winds of change, led by Hispanics like Cook County Commissioner Jesus 'Chuy' Garcia and progressives including the Bernie Sanders Our Revolution. Better yet, call it a political earthquake. Out is Joe Berrios as Cook County Assessor. As head of the Cook County Democratic Party, Berrios could not rally his troops to defeat newcomer Fritz Kaegi. Berrios won just 23 of Chicagos 50 wards. And speaking of Chicago wards, the other earthquake: Chicagos most powerful alderman, Ed Burke, just barely delivered his 14th Ward for his brother Dan, who ultimately lost re-election to the statehouse. Just 62 votes separated Dan Burke and 26-year-old Aaron Ortiz in his brother's 14th Ward. Ortiz had the strong support of Chuy Garcia and won, as Garcia did in his bid for Congress. And finally, two members of Congress turned against one of their colleagues in the 3rd Congressional District. Thats where Rep. Dan Lipinski, son of Bill Lipinski, another lion of the old guard, narrowly beat back a challenge by progressive Marie Newman in the Democratic primary. In a rare move, two of Lipiniskis Congressional colleagues, Reps. Luis Gutierrez (D-4th) and Jan Schakowsky (D-9th), bucked Lipinski and backed Newman. After Lipinski's slim victory, the next Democratic Congressional caucus meeting may be like a bad Thanksgiving, where the relatives hate each others politics. A Chinese space station is expected to fall back to Earth in the coming days and while it remains unclear exactly where it will crash, parts of Illinois and Indiana could be impacted. According to experts, Tiangong 1 is predicted to enter the earths atmosphere sometime between the end of March and early April. Aerospace predicts the station will re-enter the atmosphere around April 1, give or take a few days, while the European Space Agency predicts re-entry will happen between March 30 and April 6. The station is expected to burn up on entering the atmosphere, but debris could impact the ground, experts say. Both agencies note that exact timing and locations are difficult to predict, however both currently estimate a line across the U.S. as some of the likeliest spots. In a map from Aerospace, the line includes the southern tip of Wisconsin, much of Illinois and Indiana and nearly all of Iowa and Ohio. Communications were previously cut to the unused experimental station, the first of two built and launched by China. The Tiangong, or "Heavenly Palace," space stations are considered stepping stones to a mission to send a rover to Mars by the end of the decade. According to Aerospace, the probability someone might be struck by falling debris, however, is "about one million times smaller than the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot." Police in Eastern Wisconsin are trying to flush out a suspect accused of going on a serial toilet clogging rampage. The Sheboygan Police Department is looking for a person that they say has been clogging the womens toilet at the Deland Community Center for the past 18 months. According to a press release, the person has been using a 20-ounce bottle to clog the toilet, causing thousands of dollars in damage and in repair costs in the process. Why do this? I do not know, a police spokesman said. This is very strange, and gross, but that is the reality of life. If people see anyone acting suspiciously around public restrooms, they are encouraged to call Sheboygan Police at 920-459-3333. Citizens are also eligible for a cash reward if they call Crimestoppers at 877-283-8436. President Donald Trump singled out the city of Lawrence, Massachusetts, as a significant source of the drugs pouring into New Hampshire during a speech on his new opioid plan Monday. Speaking at Manchester Community College, Trump said Lawrence is "one of the primary sources of fentanyl in six New Hampshire counties," according to a Dartmouth College study. He tied this to the fact that Lawrence is a so-called sanctuary city, and also cited the recent arrest of 15 MS-13 gang members in Boston. "Every day, sanctuary cities release illegal immigrants, drug dealers, traffickers, gang members, into our cities," Trump said. "They're protected by these cities, and you say, 'What are they doing?' They're safe havens for just some terrible people, and they're making it very dangerous for our law enforcement officers. "You see it all the time," he continued. "As the people of New Hampshire have learned firsthand, ending sanctuary cities is crucial to stopping the drug addiction crisis." Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera fired back at Trump later Monday afternoon. "I've got a lot of emotions running through me right now, because it's not very often that the president takes your city's name in vain. So I'd like to start by saying shame on the president'" Rivera said. "He's trafficking in pain and divisiveness, creating boogiemen where we need solutions." Furthermore, Rivera argued, Trump's proposed solution is one that has failed in the past. "I'm a Reagan baby, I'm a kid from the 80s. I remember the crack epidemic. I remember the 'Just Say No' to drugs campaigns. I remember the increased prison time for dealers and users," he said. "But you know what beat the crack epidemic and the cocaine epidemic? It was police practicing community policing, jobs for inner-city kids and treatment, treatment, treatment. Serious, long-term, expensive treatment." U.S. Rep. Bill Keating, a Democrat from Massachusetts and a member of the bipartisan Heroin Task Force, agreed that the epidemic should not be combated as a crime. "Over a decade and a half ago, as Norfolk County district attorney, I started an opioid task force, and what I learned from my experience is that the president has it all wrong," Keating said in a statement. "Back then, I was tasked with the responsibility of approaching it from a criminal side, but I learned this is much more a public health issue. That is why the Centers for Disease Control advocates for an approach of combining medically assisted and behavioral health treatment as the best course." "Massachusetts has been a leader in treatment and prevention natinwide," Keating added. "While interdiction and law enforcement have a place, the narrow approach that dominated the president's remarks today simply won't work. President Trump is taking us backwards." Rivera pointed to Trump's earlier criticisms of the Granite State and accused him of politicizing a deadly crisis. "Talking out of both sides of his mouth today, he went to New Hampshire, smiling in New Hampshire's face, after calling them a 'drug-infested den.' This is not a political problem, this is not a crime problem, this is not an immigration problem. This is a human problem," Rivera said. "This is an American problem, with more than 175 Americans dying every day. And the president continues to treat every problem that faces our country like a campaign rally, and it's not." New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican whom Trump praised in his speech Monday, offered similar criticism of Lawrence a year ago, accusing the city of fueling the Granite State's drug crisis. Sununu labeled Lawrence as the prime source of fentanyl coming into his state and warned that he was about to "get tough" on dealers across the state border. Rivera hit back at the time, accusing Sununu of "threatening the sovereignty" of Massachusetts and failing to build enough treatment beds in New Hampshire. "The opioid crisis is so large that no community is without a problem, and to make it about Lawrence is the trap," Rivera said. Sununu and Rivera later spoke on the phone, after which Sununu said Lawrence has been "doing a good job" on the opioid issue. Sununu wasn't the first New England governor to accuse Lawrence, a city of many immigrants, of fueling the region's drug crisis. Maine Gov. Paul LePage said black and Hispanic drug dealers from Lawrence and Lowell were trafficking drugs into his state. Trump was in New Hampshire on Monday to unveil his plan to combat the country's opioid crisis. His plan calls for stiffer penalties for drug traffickers, including the death penalty where it's appropriate under the current law. Trump's three-part plan includes multiple steps to raise awareness, cut the illicit drug flow and expand proven treatment options. A select few states allow for doctors to prescribe medications to patients that would lead to their death. In Connecticut, the practice is currently illegal, but advocates for "aid in dying" as the practice is known, want the state to allow it. "Its meant to provide an option for those who have tremendous suffering," Rep. Andy Fleischmann, who sponsored the legislation, said. Fleischmann said he only started to seriously consider the idea of aid in dying when he began to spend time in cancer treatment centers as he fought the disease. The measure would allow doctors to assist a patient in their death only if the patient has been provided with a terminal diagnosis. Opponents say the safeguards spelled out, like those requiring family members sign off, are not enough to avoid abuse. They also say such laws cheapen life. "I would argue that the bill could never have enough safeguards to make it alright to license doctors to prescribe lethal drugs as a treatment and grant immunity to the people who help you kill you yourselves," Peter Wolfgang, the executive director of the Connecticut Family Institute, said. "It opens up way too many doors and leads us down a very destructive path in the state of Connecticut." Wolfgang said he fears family members who may be beneficiaries of someones demise looking to take advantage of a situation. Cathy Ludlum, who was born with spinal muscular atrophy and is confined to a wheelchair, said providing an option of whether to end your life in a medical setting blurs the entire issue. "People think this is about choice but once assisted suicide is available it distorts choice and theres no way around that no matter what safeguards they put in place. You dont know whats going on at home," she said. Karina Danvers from West Haven has a different a view. Shes been fighting HIV and AIDS for the better part of 30 years and shes been told on more than one occasion that the end could be coming sooner than shed like. "Its about choice," Danvers said. "Its about my choice." The odds of passage during the 2018 Regular Session appear to be slim, as the issue hasnt been considered by lawmakers since 2015, and the issue was not raised as a priority by either party. "I have been living for almost 30 years. I have taken every toxic medication you can think of to stay alive, so I dont just want this legislation so I can do myself in. If it ever gets to that point, it means that its got to mean something big," Danvers said. The push to raise the age for purchasing tobacco in Connecticut to 21 from 18 is coming from young people. More than a dozen sixth graders from Scotland, Connecticut, visited the state capitol to tell lawmakers they dont think anyone should be able to purchase tobacco until they turn 21. Olivia Martinez Chavez spoke for the class and says they think it has to do with maturity and brain development. "When youre 18 your brain is still developing and 21 you can gamble and drink, so you should be able to smoke, too, at that age," she said. Connecticut would join a handful of other states that limit tobacco sales to those over the age of 21. Currently, California, Oregon, Hawaii, Maine and New Jersey set their ages at 21, with New Jersey and Maine putting it into effect last year. Sen. Mae Flexer, one of the Democrats sponsoring the bill, said she thinks if the state can stop early tobacco use, then it could be better for health outcomes later. "Studies show that people who choose to start smoking start smoking before the age of 21 so this is a critical step in preventing smoking throughout our state," Flexer said. The tobacco industry did not provide any testimony in opposition to the bill, whereas numerous healthcare providers and those who represent them voiced their support for raising the age to 21. Those groups included the Connecticut Hospital Association, the American Heart Association and the Connecticut Medical Society. Tweed-New Haven Regional Airport officials are hoping to expand their runway, and supporters of the idea argue a bigger runway could mean more business for the whole state. We need Tweed in order to grow our region economically that ultimately grows our state, said New Haven Mayor Toni Harp. Harp is among those pushing to lengthen the airports runway by a thousand feet, to allow more regional jets to take off from Tweed and head to places like Washington DC, Chicago and Florida. Currently, the airport only offers commercial flights to Philadelphia from American Airlines. It is a wasted opportunity. There are opportunities for regional meetings, for national meetings that we dont get here in New Haven simply because people cant get in and out of here quickly, Harp said. The airports present general statute limits the length of the runway, limiting what types of planes can fly and forcing travelers in the area of travel to Bradley International Airport or New York airports for more desirable flights. House Bill 5537, a bill regarding solar facilities at municipal airports currently before the General Assemblys Planning and Development Committee could abolish the restriction on Tweed. Airport officials made the argument for expansion in front of the committee Monday. But some airport neighbors are opposed to growth at Tweed. "I looked it up and its not cheap. At all, by no means. So Im always going to Hartford or JFK. I dont travel from here, said Rosemarie Albanese, who lives nearby. Their headlights are literally in my window all the time, she added. Albanese lives just down Burr Street. She has concerns about the potential noise and structural impact of more flights at Tweed. She also remembers an August 2013 plane crash, where a plane approaching Tweed went down in East Haven, crashing into a home and killing four people. Its scary, having the plane crash right there and then bigger planes? No, she told NBC Connecticut. Other neighbors are undecided on the issue, agreeing that the airport could be a key to growth in the region, but wondering what a bigger Tweed could mean of their personal lives. Id want to know how many flights are going to be added and in terms of timing and how much more traffic they anticipate, Barb Hedberg said. The stage is set for the already-expensive race for Illinois governor to become the costliest gubernatorial election in U.S. history. J.B. Pritzker won the Democratic primary Tuesday while incumbent Gov. Bruce Rauner survived a challenge from the right to hold on to the Republican nomination. Both are billionaires who have dug deeply into their own pockets for their respective campaigns, to the tune of a combined $120 million this cycle alone. A venture capitalist and heir to the Hyatt fortune, Pritzker is the fifth-richest person in Illinois, according to Forbes, which estimated his net worth to be around $3.5 billion. Pritzkers immense personal fortune allowed him to entirely self-fund his campaign, pouring more than $69.5 million into his committee in the months leading up to the primary Election Day. That cash bought Pritzker a massive field operation and, perhaps most significantly, hours of advertising airtime, inundating television airwaves to tout his endorsements and vowing to stand up to President Donald Trump and Rauner, a message that lifted him to primary victory over five other candidates, including businessman Chris Kennedy and State Sen. Daniel Biss. Rauner, who spent a record-breaking $65 million on his entire 2014 campaign and reloaded his committee with another $50 million in December 2016, defeated conservative challenger state Rep. Jeanne Ives in the GOP primary Tuesday. Rauner bought plenty of airtime as well, running ads even before he announced his re-election campaign, then pivoting to attack Pritzker well ahead of primary election voting. Now, with the primary behind them, two of Illinois wealthiest businessmen-turned-politicians can turn their full attention to one another. With seemingly endless wealth at their disposal, the gloves will certainly come off in the battle of the billionaires, which may very well surpass the most expensive gubernatorial race in the nation's history - Californias roughly $280 million campaign in 2010. To most of the world, hes become known as the Affluenza Teen but for Tim Williams, now 20-year-old Ethan Couch is simply Ethan. For the last two years, Williams says hes visited Couch almost every week at the Tarrant County Correction Center, where Couch is serving a two-year sentence ending April 2. The relationship theyve developed is especially surprising since it was Williams childhood friend Brian Jennings, who was among those killed by Couch in 2013. The fact is he caused my best friends wife to be a widow, he caused my best friends kids to not have a dad, said Williams. Investigators concluded Couch was drunk and traveling at speeds reaching 70-miles per hour when he hit and killed four people on June 15, 2013. Among those killed, was 24-year-old Breanna Mitchell, whose SUV had broken down. 52-year-old Hollie Boyles, her daughter Shelby Boyles, 21, and 41-year-old Brian Jennings had stopped to help Mitchell and were also killed. There is a question of who was Ethan when the crime happened and then the question of who is Ethan today, said Williams. Williams say he was angered by a judges 2013 decision to not sentence Ethan to any jail time. And, then in 2015, when Ethan was captured after violating his probation and fleeing to Mexico, Williams began to wonder about the kid who killed his friend. I just felt I need to know who this guy is, I need to see where he is, I need to know if there is any hope for him, said Williams. And so began an unlikely relationship. With a background in ministry, Williams became a visiting chaplain at the Tarrant County Correction Center and started seeing Couch for 30 mins, nearly every week since April 2016. I think that Ethan is now a young man that has the potential to bring life, to be quote the good citizen, the good friend, a good man and maybe someday a good father, said Williams. Williams says in the last six months Ethan has grown, showing remorse for his actions and accepting Williams own forgiveness. My opinion today is that Ethan is on a path that Brian would be proud of, Williams said. "I don't know how Ethan is going to be when he gets out, my hopes, my prayers are he is really transformed, as I think he is." On April 2, Ethan Couch is set to be released from jail and while Williams doesnt venture to guess what the future holds, he believes Couch is leaving jail a different person. An industry association representing Texas' liquor store operators says it will appeal a federal judge's ruling that opens the door for Walmart in Texas to sell liquor by the bottle. U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman's ruling Tuesday backed Walmart's constitutional challenge to the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, which had refused Walmart licenses for retail liquor sales. The retailer argued package liquor license restrictions, some dating to the end of Prohibition, amounted to unconstitutional discrimination. The chief executive officer of the 2,500-member Texas Package Stores Association, Lance Lively, said Wednesday the ruling is disappointing and overturns decades of Texas law regulating liquor sales. The association intervened in the lawsuit, backing the state's restrictions, and says it will appeal to continue its fight for family-owned liquor store owners against large corporate entities. Do you recognize this couple? A tourist from Rhode Island taking in the sights at San Francisco's Pier 39 on March 4 snapped a photo of an unidentified suitor drop to one knee under the glistening sun and propose to the love of their life next to the pier's "Open Heart" sculpture. The tourist, who wished to remain anonymous, took to Reddit and posted the snapshot in hopes of figuring out a way to track down the newly engaged couple and gift them the image. So far, the tourist hasn't had much luck in finding the couple, but others have taken to Reddit to both wish good luck in the search and offer tips that could lead to a breakthrough. While it appears as though at least three people were already recording the special moment from another vantage point, folks on Reddit said that the couple might appreciate another snapshot of their engagement from a different angle. What to Know 44-year-old James Young Havens III pleaded guilty Tuesday to accessory after the fact. Authorities say a group of teens lured 15-year-old Seath Jackson, who had previously dated a girl in the group, to a home in 2011. He was beaten and shot multiple times. his body was burned and authorities say Havens drove two of the teens to a water-filled quarry. A Florida man faces up to 30 years in prison for helping dispose of a murdered teen's body. The Ocala Star-Banner reports that 44-year-old James Young Havens III pleaded guilty Tuesday to accessory after the fact. No date was immediately set for his sentencing. Authorities say a group of teens lured 15-year-old Seath Jackson, who had previously dated a girl in the group, to a Summerfield home in April 2011. He was beaten and shot multiple times. His body was burned, and authorities say Havens drove two of the teens to a water-filled quarry in Ocala, where they dumped three buckets filled with human remains. Four other suspects are serving life sentences: 27-year-old Justin Soto, 25-year-old Charlie Ely, 23-year-old Kyle Hooper and 21-year-old Amber Wright. The group's leader, 25-year-old Michael Bargo has been sentenced to death. What to Know New incidents including students found with weapons, a sleeping deputy and the suspect's brother's trespassing have raised safety concerns Scott said the troopers will report for duty Thursday morning at the school to "help secure entry points" and keep students safe Just a month after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School made security a priority, new incidents this week including students found with weapons, a sleeping on-duty deputy and the alleged trespassing of the shooting suspect's brother on campus have raised more safety questions at the Parkland school. Florida Gov. Rick Scott said he's deploying eight Florida Highway Patrol troopers to the school, while Broward Sheriff Scott Israel released a statement Wednesday saying that every deputy will be held accountable and "any failure to protect the public will not be tolerated." Meanwhile, Broward County Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie said security at the school "continues to be an urgent priority." "Given the developments over the past 24 hours, we will further enhance school safety measures," Runcie tweeted Tuesday. Among the measures being taken at all Broward schools is that all students and staff will be required to wear IDs while on campus. School officials say classroom doors will be locked at all times and exterior doors and gates will stay locked throughout the day. The district is working on limiting access to one entry point at the schools and a plan expected to be in place by the first quarter of 2019. The district is also expecting about $8.5 million to place at least one resource officer at every school for the next school year. When Marjory Stoneman Douglas students return from spring break on April 2, they'll be required to use clear backpacks, which will be given to students at no cost. Runcie said metal detectors may soon be installed at the school as well. The measures are being taken after it was learned a deputy fell asleep while on duty Monday at the school where 17 people were killed last month. A Broward Sheriff's Office news release says Deputy Moises Carotti was suspended with pay Tuesday pending the outcome of an internal affairs investigation. The release says a student approached a sheriff's office sergeant who was patrolling the interior of Stoneman Douglas shortly after 5 p.m. Monday and told the sergeant that Carotti was asleep in his patrol car. The sergeant reported finding the marked patrol vehicle and waking Carotti with a knock on the window. Another deputy was sent to replace Carotti for that shift. "The Broward Sheriffs Office holds its 5,400 employees to the highest professional standards. No one expects more from our agencys public safety personnel than I do, which is why BSO is thoroughly investigating the conduct of Dep. Moises Carotti," Israel said in the statement. "Every single deputy will be held accountable for his or her actions, and any failure to protect the public will not be tolerated." Earlier Monday afternoon, 18-year-old Zachary Cruz, the brother of shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz, was arrested at the school on a trespassing charge. Authorities said Zachary Cruz rode his skateboard onto the campus, even though he had been warned not to visit the school, and told deputies he was there to "reflect on the school schooling and to soak it in." FHP will be deploying eight troopers to Marjory Stoneman Douglas. We will stop at nothing to protect our schools and our students. https://t.co/oo2CnorIXc Rick Scott (@FLGovScott) March 21, 2018 A judge on Tuesday set a $500,000 bond for Zachary Cruz and ordered him to stay away from the school if he's released. The judge also said the home where he is living in Palm Beach County should be searched for weapons. After the hearing, BSO filed for a risk protection order against Zachary Cruz. If a judge approves the request, Cruz would be hospitalized for a mental health evaluation and barred from acquiring firearms. Also on Tuesday, officials said a Stoneman Douglas student was arrested for making threatening social media posts, while two others were arrested in separate, unrelated incidents for bringing knives to school. Deputies say they received a tip Tuesday that a male student at Stoneman Douglas had posted pictures of a gun and bullets on Snapchat with threatening messages. The 10th-grader was involuntarily hospitalized for mental health reasons. Deputies say a female student dumped cereal on a male student's head and pulled a 2-inch knife on him Tuesday morning after he made an obscene comment to her friend. Officials said they also found a 9-inch knife in a male student's backpack Tuesday after another student had reported he was brandishing the weapon on the bus a day earlier. On Wednesday, Scott said the troopers will report for duty Thursday morning at the school to "help secure entry points" and keep students safe. "We will stop at nothing to protect our schools and our students," Scott tweeted. Israel said he welcomed Scott's offer and thanked him for his continued support. "The safety of the people of Broward County is my number one priority, and through a collaborative, all-hands-on-deck approach, we are working to ensure that nothing like the February 14th tragedy happens again," Israel said in a statement. Andrew Pollack, father of shooting victim Meadow Pollack, was named to a Florida commission to study mass shootings and school safety Tuesday, and said more needs to be done. "Not on my watch," Pollack said in a Facebook video post. "I'm not gonna tolerate that stuff. Sheriff sleeping, open perimeter, anyone can walk in. It's really just common sense, I'm not even an expert. It just bothers me how no one can really care and all the incompetence, the incompetence that's going on in Parkland right now." What to Know The bridge collapse near FIU killed six people on Thursday. Two men who were partners died when the bridge crashed down. A lawyer for the families of the two men said a lawsuit will be filed once all victims are laid to rest. Osvaldo Gonzalez and Alberto Arias were partners for 21 years. They were together and were both killed when the pedestrian bridge collapsed near FIU. Despite the tragedy, their unity will continue after death as they were buried next to one another. During a press conference on Tuesday, the families of the "soul mates" said the partners of over two decades will be buried on Wednesday. Arias' nephew Luis said Arias, 53, and Gonzalez, 57, were "two beautiful beings." Luis sent his condolences to the other families who are mourning. The bridge collapse near Florida International University killed four other people. "They were partners. They were together in their ups. They were together in their downs," Luis said. "They were together in their travels and enjoying life and they will be together when they're laid to rest." Luis said the men were "selfless" and that they were always "full of life, full of joy." The Cuban men were driving together before the 950-ton bridge crashed down. "Up to their final moment, they were together," Luis said. Osvaldos sister Marisol Gonzalez and his nephew Erik Rojas were also at the press conference. A GoFundMe page was set up for Arias' mother "Alberto wanted to make sure that his mom was taken care of and that she had a roof over her head for the remaining years of her life," the GoFundMe page reads. "Please help Alberto take care of his mom, even if it is posthumously." Yesenia Collazo, the lawyer representing the Arias and Gonzalez families, said they have not yet filed a lawsuit out of respect for victims. They will wait until everyone has been laid to rest and will continue to gather information in the meantime, she said. Collazo said the entire incident could have been avoided if officials simply put up barricades, particularly if those involved in the project knew there were cracks in the structure. An engineer of the company that designed the bridge warned the Florida Department of Transportation in a voicemail of cracks two days prior to the collapse, but said the company was "not concerned" from a "safety perspective." An FDOT official heard the voicemail the day after the bridge collapsed. "If there was a crack at the bridge, why did they not barricade the roads?" Collazo said. The funeral viewing event for the partners was on Tuesday. They were buried on Wednesday. A lawsuit has already been filed against the companies involved in the design and building of the bridge that collapsed near FIU on Thursday. The first lawsuit was filed by a man who said he was seriously injured as he rode a bicycle under the bridge as it collapsed. The lawsuit alleges a car swerving to avoid the falling concrete struck the cyclist. What to Know Two students were arrested for bringing weapons to school on Tuesday in separate incidents. One student was Baker Acted after posting an online threat on social media. Two Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students were arrested for allegedly bringing weapons to the Parkland school on Tuesday while another student faces charges over an online threat. Police say that 18-year-old Jordan Salter pulled a two inch knife out of her clothing - which the public defender siad was to defend herself from what Salter called an "aggressive boy" who allegedly approached her after an argument in which she threw an iced coffee at him.' "My daughter's never been in trouble, she should've never had a weapon," said her father, Scott, during a Wednesday bond court hearing. Salter was given a $12,000 bond and ordered to stay away from the school. A second student allegedly had a 9-inch knife in his backpack that was found after school officials were alerted to it on Tuesday by a student who saw it during a school bus ride on Monday - while a separate Stoneman Douglas student faces a misdemeanor charge for making a threat on social media. "A Broward Sheriff's Office deputy responded to the school to investigate a tip and interviewed the 10th-grader about photos he shared on Snapchat," BSO said in a statement. "In one image, the teen displays a gun in his waistband. In a second image, he shows off bullets. The detective said both photos had threatening messages; one message was directed to a person named 'Josh.'" The teenager was held under Florida's Baker Act and taken to a facility for a mental health evaluation. United Airlines says it's investigating after mistakenly flying a Kansas family's dog to Japan. Kara Swindle and her two children flew from Oregon to Kansas City, Missouri, Tuesday on a United flight, KCTV reported. They went to a cargo facility to pick up 10-year-old Irgo, a German shepherd, but were instead given a Great Dane. Swindle, of Wichita, Kansas, learned Irgo had been put on a flight to Japan, where the Great Dane was supposed to go. Airline officials in Japan put Irgo on a flight back to Kansas City. It isn't clear when the dog will arrive. "An error occurred during connections in Denver for two pets sent to the wrong destinations," a spokesman for United said in a statement. "We have notified our customers that their pets have arrived safely and will arrange to return the pets to them as soon as possible. We apologize for this mistake and are following up with the vendor kennel where they were kept overnight to understand what happened," the airline's statement continued. The news of Irgo's unplanned odyssey comes as United admits another dog died after a flight attendant forced it to travel in an overhead bin on a Houston-to-New York flight. United called that death a "tragic accident that should never have occurred, as pets should never be placed in the overhead bin." A Fly Jamaica Airways crewmember allegedly brought an extra passenger with him to New York last week -- $160,000 worth of cocaine taped to his legs. Hugh Hall arrived at JFK on March 17 on a flight from Montego Bay and presented for inspection, Customs and Border Protection said in a statement. He was taken to a private room, where officers found four packages of white powder taped to his legs. The packages, nine pounds in total, later tested positive for cocaine. Hall was arrested for importation of a controlled substance. Customs described Hall only as a "crewmember," but his precise role was not immediately clear. A photo released by CBP showed Hall in what appeared to be a flight crew uniform, however. An armed man who holed himself up in a restaurant across the street from Princeton University for hours is dead after being shot by police, officials say. The New Jersey attorney general's office says the man, armed with a shotgun inside Panera Bread, entered the building at around 10 a.m. Tuesday, prompting customers and workers to flee. Police responded and secured the area, and attempted to negotiate with him for several hours. The standoff ended around 3 p.m. when the man was fatally shot by police. The man was pronounced dead at the scene. No other injuries have been reported. The attorney general's office says it is investigating. In New Jersey, all investigations into deadly police shootings and incidents are investigated by the attorney general's independent prosecutor directive. Authorities shut down Princeton's downtown area, and two campus buildings were evacuated as a precaution. Classes are not in session at Princeton, which is on spring break. More than half of all flights at the Philadelphia International Airport have been canceled. Dozens of Amtrak's scheduled trains along the Northeast Corridor line have been canceled. Crashes on Interstates 95 and 76 shut down major highways. And that's what happened before heavy snow arrived Wednesday afternoon in Philadelphia. Officials at the airport and with the region's major transit agencies told travelers unlucky enough to have plans on this daylong storm to monitor their arrangements. Changes will eventually be posted, they said. "Customers will be re-accommodated on trains with similar departure times so please check on Amtrak.com or your smartphone app," a statement from Amtrak said. "For customers looking to change reservations for travel during the modified schedule, Amtrak will waive the change fee." Amtrak will continue to run on a modified schedule Thursday. On average, the airport handles about 1,000 flights each day. As of 1 p.m., 700 flights were canceled. Then there are those who had to drudge through the sleet, snow and wind to work on modes like NJ Transit buses. You had better leave your job early: NJ Transit said its entire bus system would shut down at 3 p.m. The snowstorm that first landed Tuesday and will linger through the evening Wednesday is to blame. It's the fourth nor'easter in a month, and most damaging to the prospects of flying out of or into Philadelphia is that the hazardous conditions will last 36 hours. Up to a foot of snow is expected to fall in many places across southeastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, according to the NBC10 First Alert Weather Team. Strong winds and flooding in coastal towns are also forecast. Beyond Amtrak, other train systems, including SEPTA, PATCO, and NJ Transit, shifted to alternate schedules. SEPTA Regional Rail lines were operating on a Saturday schedule, limiting the number of trains running. The Cynwyd line is no longer operating. SEPTA General Manager Jeff Kneuppel said Wednesday will be a very difficult travel day for anyone using the system. However, the agency had subways and buses operating on a normal schedule Wednesday morning. SEPTA is preparing to resume normal weekday service on all modes Thursday though delays, bus route detours, suspensions and cancellations are still possible. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation issued restrictions on certain vehicles traveling state highways, starting at 8 p.m. Tuesday. Here is a link to the full list of restrictions. They concern commercial trucking, hauling trailers, motorcycles and RVs, and the restrictions applied to all highways throughout southeastern Pennsylvania. Despite lower-than-normal volume on most of the major roads in southeastern Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey, crashes did bottle up some of the main highways in the morning. Two tractor trailers were involved in a serious crash in Lancaster County near Reading on Interstate 76, shutting down the westbound lanes. A Philadelphia police vehicle crashed on Interstate 95 about 10 a.m., closing two lanes. It is unclear how many injuries were the result of the crashes. AAA Mid-Atlantic said its roadside assistance service responded to more than 350 motorist calls in the five-county southeastern Pennsylvania region. "AAA call volume remains low as motorists are heeding the travel warnings," the company said in a statement at 2 p.m. "However, it has increased substantially in the past hour as road conditions deteriorate." Here are some of other agencies' advisories and changes in service: With reports of American power plants across the country having their systems accessed by hackers, one group of scientists are calling out the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and Southern California Edison for their recent decision to remove enhanced cyber-security systems at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. It defies logic and it's not technically sound, Dr. Edwin Lyman, a Nuclear Scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists told NBC 7 Investigates. Scientists like Lyman point to a report released just last week as evidence for power plant operators to take cyber-security more seriously, even at closed power plants like San Onofre. Spent fuel remains dangerous, as long as its at the plant it has to be protected, Lyman said, Cyber-security is an essential element of that protection. NBC 7 Investigates has learned San Onofre is moving forward with removing current cyber-security systems in place. The process started last year when Southern California Edison, the company that owns San Onofre, wrote the NRC asking to "terminate the SONG's Cyber Security Plan." NRC staff reports show regulators agreed with Edison's assessment on removing cyber-security and approved their request, saying spent fuel at the plant is less of a risk and the "consequences of a cyber-attack" on the plant are now "much lower." A spokesperson for Southern California Edison told NBC 7 Investigates the cyber-security reduction does not reduce safety since the plant still has armed security on-site. San Onofre, like the rest of nations nuclear power plants, has been well protected from possible cyber threats, Southern California Edison spokesperson Maureen Brown said in an email to NBC 7 Investigates, It is designed as an island of operation that is disconnected from the Internet and external networks except for limited applications that are well controlled. To read more of Southern California Edisons statement, click here. There are a wide range of ways that a cyber-attacker could influence and assist in an eventual physical attack on the plant and thats what I worry about most, Lyman said. Some of those ways include viruses or phishing attacks sent to security personnel by email. This was how hackers reportedly tried to compromise a Kansas power plant's systems last year. Other fears Lyman and his fellow scientists have include hackers gaining access to the plant's electronic locks, alarms, or their ability to jam communications, preventing security warnings of a physical attack. Lyman believes So-Cal-Edison and the NRC are prioritizing costs over safety with the cyber-security reduction. According to a 2017 congressional research report, companies that own U-S nuclear power plants are facing severe financial pressure, caused by growing supplies of renewable energy, low-cost natural gas and stagnant electricity demand. The NRC told us So-Cal-Edison's removal of the current cyber-security systems "is consistent with maintaining adequate protection of the public health and safety and the common defense and security." To read all of the NRCs answers to our questions, click here. You must consider the possibility for a physical attack on a nuclear power plant, Lyman said, fearing a cyber-attack, coordinated with a physical attack, could be disastrous. The NRC says if attackers attempted to sabotage the plant and cause a nuclear meltdown, workers would have about 10 hours to intervene and prevent this from happening. That 10-hour "cushion" is one major reason why the NRC allowed Southern California Edison to drop their cyber-security program. The teenage boy who opened fire inside his Maryland high school on Tuesday used his father's gun to shoot his ex-girlfriend and another student, authorities say. The handgun that the shooter -- identified by authorities as 17-year-old Austin Wyatt Rollins -- used was legally owned by his father, the St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office said in a statement issued Wednesday afternoon. Rollins "had a prior relationship which recently ended" with the 16-year-old girl who he gravely wounded, the sheriff's office said. "All indications suggest the shooting was not a random act of violence," the statement said. The investigation has not yet revealed any threats from Rollins. A 14-year-old boy shot in the leg at Great Mills High School in St. Mary's County had been released from a hospital as of noon, hospital officials said. The 16-year-old girl remains in critical condition. The violence erupted moments before classes started on Tuesday. It wasn't immediately clear whether Rollins took his own life or was killed by a school resource officer's bullet, nor was it clear how the 14-year-old boy was wounded, St. Mary's County Sheriff Tim Cameron said. Authorities didn't release a motive. Police did not identify the victims, but the family of 16-year-old Jaelynn Willey, a sophomore at Great Mills, confirmed she had been shot. Willey is one of nine siblings, according to a statement from the family, and a member of the swim team. She is a role model to her brothers and sisters, her family said, and helps to take care of them every day. Earlier Tuesday, law enforcement was set to complete an urgent trace request by the sheriff's office for the history of the semi-automatic Glock handgun that officials say Rollins used. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives tries to answer such requests within 24 hours. Specifics would include the make, model and serial number of the firearm. "The purpose of a trace is to find out who the initial purchaser of a firearm is," said Amanda Hils, a spokeswoman for the Baltimore field division However Rollins got the gun, it appeared he possessed it illegally. In Maryland, a person must be 21 to possess a handgun, unless carrying one is required for employment. Great Mills High will be closed for more than a week and a half, after the school's scheduled spring break. Classes will resume April 2, the principal said in an online notice to families. "Words cannot express the sadness and grief that our school community is feeling right now. I know that we are shaken and scared after todays events and will struggle for some time trying to make sense of it all. I do not know exactly how, but we will find a way to overcome this tragedy," the notice said. "Now more than ever, we need to stand together as a school community to love, cherish, and support one another. We have and we will continue to stay strong, stay together, and find a way to get through this." Counseling services are being offered. Before they return to class, many students and school alumni plan to participate in Saturday's March for Our Lives in D.C. Thousands of people are expected to attend the demonstration, which was organized after the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida that left 17 students and staff members dead. A student witness of the shooting said a police officer tried to order a student with a gun to his head to disarm before two shots were fired. Student Isiah Tichenor told The Washington Post he saw a fellow student hold a gun to his head Tuesday and heard a police officer shout an order to put the gun down. School Shooting Incidents Since 2013 Everytown.org defines the incidents mapped below as any time a firearm discharges a live round inside or into a school building or on or onto a school campus or grounds, as documented by the press and, when necessary, confirmed through further inquiries with law enforcement or school officials. Incidents in which guns were brought into schools but not discharged are not included. Source: Everytown.org, NBC Staff Reports Last updated on Nov. 14, 2019 Attempts to reach Rollins' family were unsuccessful. One of the shooter's friends, 14-year-old Jordan Hutchinson, and his mother dropped off a condolence card at the Rollins home. Jordan recalled meeting Austin five years ago during a snowstorm, and building snow forts together. "Austin was a nice kid. We did sleepovers all the time," he said. Actress and activist Rose McGowan made an appearance in a Loudoun County, Virginia, courtroom Wednesday, but her preliminary trial for felony drug possession was pushed back several weeks. Two witnesses set to testify for the prosecution were unable to get to court due to many inches of snow in the D.C. area. The judge rescheduled the preliminary hearing for May 3 at 1 p.m. McGowan clutched her Aunts hand as she entered the courtroom and politely acknowledged reporters, but did not comment on how she felt about the hearing. She was accompanied by three attorneys, including Jessica Carmichael, and several others. Once in court, special prosecutor Rebecca Thacher asked for a continuance. Carmichael told Loudoun General District Court Judge Dean S. Worcester it is unfortunate the case must be prolonged, but the attorney agreed to postpone the hearing. On the way out of the courtroom, the Harvey Weinstein accuser told News4 she didnt mind returning to Virginia for another hearing. The state of Virginia is beautiful, McGowan said. Im always happy to visit it." McGowan also remarked to News4 about the snow, saying, "we dont get that in California." McGowan was charged with felony drug possession after authorities said cocaine was found in a wallet she left behind on a flight to Dulles International Airport in January 2017. McGowan's lawyers had been expected to argue for dismissal of the charge. They've suggested the drugs may have been planted by agents hired by disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein to discredit her for making sex assault accusations against him. Weinstein has denied the rape allegations. Federal regulators have cited a Baltimore hospital in connection with a January incident in which a mentally ill woman was discharged and left at an open-air bus stop wearing only a flimsy gown and socks. The Baltimore Sun reported Tuesday that a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services investigation found the University of Maryland Medical Center violated patient rights as well as several patient safety and hospital management regulations. The 22-year-old woman had been treated for a head wound, but authorities say she became resistant while being discharged. Security intervened and escorted the visibly disoriented woman outside, where temperatures were in the 30s. Cheryl Chandler, the woman's mother, said she was only made aware of her missing daughter's predicament on the night of Jan. 9 when she happened upon a viral video shot by a passer-by enraged at the way she was treated. Chandler said her daughter has been struggling intensely with mental illness since she was 16. Over the past year-and-a-half, she has cycled through a couple of residential facilities for mentally ill clients. "My daughter did not choose to be the face of mental illness. She didn't choose to be an example of the impact of a failed mental health care system. She was an individual in need of services," Chandler said during a press conference in January, adding that she was "eternally grateful" to psychotherapist Imamu Baraka for shooting the cellphone video showing her daughter's condition. The hospital, which previously apologized for a lack of "basic humanity and compassion," has outlined a corrective plan in response to the violations. What to Know 16-year-old Jaelynn Willey is in critical condition after a gunman opened fire at a Maryland high school. A 14-year-old was also shot. The 17-year-old shooter has died, authorities said. Students at the school participated in an anti-gun violence walkout last week. A teenage girl who was shot in the halls of her high school has life-threatening injuries. Jaelynn Willey, 16, was in the hallway of Great Mills High School in Maryland Tuesday morning when police say Austin Rollins pointed a semi-automatic handgun at her and fired. Authorities say Willey and Rollins had a previous relationship. Willey, a dedicated student, beach-lover and swim team member, is in the intensive care unit at UM Prince George's Hospital Center. "Jaelynn is an amazing young lady whose peaceful presence and love of her fellow students and family is known throughout her Maryland-based school, her family said in a statement on a Youcaring Fundraiser page set up to help pay her medical bills. Willey has eight siblings, one older and seven younger. She is a role model to her brothers and sisters, her family says, and helps to take care of them every day. It is hard for us not to see her shining, smiling face right now, and to see her light up the room with her presence, the familys statement said. Please keep Jaelynn and our family in your prayers. Willey was shot about five minutes before the first period bell was set to ring. Another student, a 14-year-old boy, was shot in the leg. Hes in good condition, officials said. The nature of Willeys relationship with Rollins is still unclear. Rollins died after an exchange of gunfire with a school resource officer. It's not clear if the officer's shot killed the teen boy. This attack is the 12th school shooting that has ended in injury or death this year, according to Everytown For Gun Safety research. Willeys family said they will update the public when they can. Hundreds of Florida International University students gathered for a vigil Wednesday morning to remember the six victims who died in a pedestrian bridge collapse near campus. The names of the victims were displayed on a screen inside a ballroom at the Miami-area school. Loud gasps and crying could be heard from the crowd when the name of FIU student Alexa Duran appeared on the screen. "No one will be able to understand how I feel. Alexa was my world and my life," the student's mother, Gina Duran, told The Associated Press. "Nothing will ever be the same." Mourners laid flowers and other items honoring the victims at a roadside memorial near the site where the bridge fell. "She was so special and there was so much potential in her that unfortunately she didnt get to live out, but her legacy is gonna live forever and Im so honored that I was her friend," Duran's friend Sofia Rincon said. FIU President Mark Rosenberg said the school remained in deep shock over the collapse Thursday of the 950-ton structure onto a busy roadway. "Families are shattered," he said. "We will carry the memory of the victims. We will carry them forever." The bridge was intended to connect the campus with Sweetwater, a neighboring municipality. Sweetwater Mayor Orlando Lopez said the bridge had been cause for celebration when it was installed March 10. "Less than a week later, the bridge meant to save lives took six lives and injured many more," Lopez said. Construction of the bridge was behind schedule and millions over budget, in part because of a key change in the design and placement of one of its support towers, according to documents obtained by AP through a public-records request. The documents show the Florida Department of Transportation told FIU and its contractors in October 2016 to move one of the bridge's main support structures 11 feet north to the edge of a canal, widening the gap between the crossing's end supports and requiring some new structural design. Videos of Thursday's collapse show that the concrete, prefabricated segment of the bridge started crumbling on the same end of the span where the tower redesign occurred, two days after an engineer on the project reported cracks in the same location. The segment that failed had been placed atop the pylon's footing; the taller tower section was to be installed later. U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao has ordered her department's inspector general to conduct an audit of the bridge. The agency awarded millions of dollars to the project. It is still unclear if the design change contributed to the failure. But emails between the school, contractors, Sweetwater city officials and permitting agencies show a project that was behind schedule, which had officials worried that further delays could jeopardize the federal funding. When the bridge collapsed, the project was already running about $2.6 million over its $9.4 million initial budget, cost-tracking documents from February show. Originally scheduled to be completed in July, the finish date had been pushed back to January 2019. Munilla Construction Management, or MCM, and FIGG Bridge Design collaborated on the bridge project. Representatives for both companies and the city of Sweetwater declined comment, pending an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board. FIU spokeswoman Maydel Santana said Tuesday that the bridge was expected to be completed early in 2019, and its grant would run out on Sept. 30, 2019. Multiple engineers who reviewed the documents obtained by the AP, as well as images of the collapse, said moving the tower after the bridge's initial design invited errors. But they also said more analysis was warranted before it could be known whether this played a role in the collapse. We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. Maine's largest power company is under investigation after more than 1,000 customers complained to state regulators about spiking electric bills. The Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously Tuesday morning to launch a management audit into Central Maine Power's billing practices. "People should have trust and confidence in a bill that they receive from their utility," said PUC Chairman Mark Vannoy. "If that trust and confidence is eroded, the commission needs to be looking into it." Hundreds of customers have contacted the PUC and taken to social media, complaining that recent electric bills are more than double what they usually pay. Linda Flagg of Jay is one of them. "Something is going on here, and I don't trust my billing," she said. She said the price increase does not seem to match any change in electricity use, and suspects there is an issue with CMP's smart meter system. "What other explanation is there?" she asked. The power company had been pointing to severe weather. In October, a strong wind storm knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of Mainers. Then a brutally cold snap during the winter forced many homeowners to turn up their heat. But some customers aren't buying that explanation. They are praising the PUC for launching the investigation, but wish it was happening faster. "What have they been doing the past month?" said Flagg. "What have they been doing to protect the consumer?" Maine's Public Adovcate, Barry Hobbins, said CMP customers disputing their bills should contact the PUC's consumer assistance division at 800-452-4699. Registering a complaint with the PUC could help prevent a customer from having his or her electricity shut off. Hobbins said the volume of the complaints has been unprecedented. "If it weren't for the rate-paying public's complaints, this [vote to investigate] would not have happened," said Hobbins. "We welcome the PUCs assistance and look forward to working together to ensure that our customers are being billed fairly and accurately," Central Maine Power President and CEO Doug Herling said in a statement. "At the same time, we are conducting our own comprehensive review of the complaints to determine what the underlying causes were for the increases. Any detected errors will be fixed and those customers will be made whole." The PUC's management audit is expected to take several months to complete. A Massachusetts man is facing numerous charges in connection with a carjacking on Cape Cod. Joseph Bopp, 27, of Chatham and Norwood, was arrested and charged with various offenses including larceny of a motor vehicle, reckless operation of a motor vehicle, speeding, marked lane violations, failure to stop for police, assault on a family member, and carjacking. He was ordered to be held without bail pending a dangerousness hearing next week during his arraignment on Wednesday at Orleans District Court. Police responded to Jacknife Landing at about 12:30 a.m. Wednesday where they found an overturned vehicle in Pleasant Bay. The vehicle's owner, 48-year-old Harwich resident Ramona Caron, told police a man had approached her and forcibly removed her from the vehicle. The man, later identified as Bopp, had attempted to flee but then crashed it into the ocean. The victim told police the suspect then took off on foot. "He didn't say a word, nothing, it happened so fast," Caron told NBC10 Boston. A couple hours earlier, at about 10:15 p.m. Tuesday, police were called to investigate a report of a stolen vehicle from another residence. That vehicle was later discovered crashed and abandoned in Orleans. Following a search by Chatham, Harwich and Orleans police, authorities located Bopp at the home of the first disturbance where he was taken into custody. The investigation into the incidents is ongoing. Caron said she's relieved police found the suspect, but added she was still shaken by the whole experience. She told NBC10 Boston she was at the beach so late because she was reflecting on the fifth anniversary of her father's death. A Massachusetts high school student is expected to face a judge on Wednesday after allegedly threatening to harm a staff member. Scott Arnold, 18, of East Bridgewater, was taken into custody Tuesday and charged with making a threat to commit a crime. Police said they were notified during the day by officials at East Bridgewater Junior Senior High School that Arnold allegedly made threatening remarks that he wanted to kill a school staff member. Following an investigation, police determined Arnold made the remarks at the school to another student. Police then obtained an arrest warrant and placed Arnold under arrest. Arnold's home was later searched by police but it was determined he did not have access to a weapon. In a statement, East Bridgewater Police Chief Scott Allen said threats are not taken lightly. "Given what has been happening across the country, it is vital that students and faculty remain vigilant and as always, if you see or hear something, say something," Allen said. Arnold was ordered held on $40 bail and is expected to be arraigned in Brockton District Court. It's unclear if he has an attorney. On a much colder day than this one, firefighters from Carver, Massachusetts, pic and crawl their way across the ice. They're rushing to rescue a woman who has fallen through. It's a training exercise on Sampson's Pond in Carver. And the fire department has launched its secret weapon. At first glance, it looks like a boat, but it's actually a hovercraft. It glides on a pocket of air just above the ground. With little set-up, it can get to victims quickly, avoiding what firefighters say can be a terrifying time for victims -- waiting and watching as rescuers make the laborious journey on their bellies, panic setting in. "By the time you get to that person, they're going to try and attack you and do whatever they can," said firefighter Austin White. "With this, we can kind of control the environment." According to state data, firefighters average about 45 ice rescues a season -- people and pets plucked from frigid waters. "It's just an incredible feeling, I can't explain it to you," said Deputy Fire Chief Eric Germaine. But as the nature of storms evolve here in New England and across the country, the hovercraft is proving to be an ace in the hole. "It can go over anything," White explained. "It can go over broken ice, water, mud, land." It doesn't have to stop for each change in terrain. There is no propeller to get caught on rocks or chunks of ice and firefighters dont need to drag trapped people through water or carry them on their backs. "You can just fly this up to their door, pick them up, get them in, fly them to safety," said White. We saw them used during Hurricane Harvey and hovering over the mudslides in California, where a swift current of earth could have overpowered a boat. "You don't have much time. I can't even imagine it," said White. Of course, they hope they won't need the hovercraft, but are ready if they do. "From the time we pull up on scene, we have firefighters with that victim, saving a life," Germaine said. The state doesn't track the number of hovercraft departments have. Carver got theirs in 1992 and refurbished it a few years ago for $23,000. From J's Oyster to jail, the owner of a popular Portland, Maine restaurant will soon serve a four-month sentence for stealing sales tax. Cynthia Brown, 58, of Portland, pleaded guilty to theft and tax evasion charges. Prosecutors say she had been under-reporting sales at J's Oyster and pocketing sales tax paid by customers between 2008 and 2015. The amount of stolen sales tax is more than $800,000. Assistant Attorney General Gregg Bernstein said Brown also failed to pay income tax. She must pay back more than $1.3 million to the state. "It's a lot of money," said Bernstein. "It's important to make sure there's trust in the system, that businesses who handle tens of thousands, or millions of dollars, are responsible to truthfully account for that money." Bernstein said Brown has been cooperative in the investigation and has paid back a significant portion of the restitution already. She is supposed to report to jail in two weeks. Staff said Wednesday that they will keep the restaurant open while Brown serves her sentence. J's Oyster has been a seafood staple on the Portland waterfront for 40 years. Loyal customers say the owner's crimes won't deter them from supporting the business. "We like the food, and we like the atmosphere," said Ann McAleer. She and her husband went to J's for lunch Wednesday. Don McAleer said boycotting the business would hurt innocent employees. "The people that work there, it's not their fault," he said. He called Brown's felony convictions "a shame." Brown did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday. She told the Portland Press Herald that she regretted the crimes, and did not take the money intentionally. She said the business slipped when she took time to care for her sick husband. When Andrea Amico found out that her seven-year-old daughter, who had attended day care at the former Pease Airforce Base, had high levels of potentially harmful chemicals in her body, she got to work. She founded an activist group called "Testing for Pease," which is now fighting for filters in Portsmouth, New Hampshire's water system. The chemicals found in the city's water at Pease are called polyuoroalkyl substances (PFAS). An annual water report for Portsmouth completed in 2016 says that exposure to PFAS over certain levels may result in adverse health effects, including developmental effects to fetuses during pregnancy, low birth weight, accelerated puberty, and cancer. The chemicals can remain in the body for 7 to 9 years. The USEPA health advisory warns of potential health problems when the chemicals are concentrated at 70 parts per trillion. The Haven well was found to have 200 parts per trillion. It was shut down in May 2014. "My children were exposed in their very early life, and I wonder how this is going to affect them as they continue to grow and develop," Amico said. Amico said lower levels of the PFAS were found in the remaining two wells. City Councilor Rebecca Perkins confirmed 20 parts per trillion, keeping it under the federal government's advisory level. The city's water serves Portsmouth's schools. "There's research to show that even low levels of these chemicals can be associated with adverse health affects," said Amico. Amico has filtered and bottled water in her home. "I can control the water my kids are drinking at home," said Amico. "I can't necessarily control what they're drinking at school." At Monday's Portsmouth city council meeting, Amico asked council members to install water filters in the city school's water. "We need to identify what's really going to fix it for the long term and we need to make that infrastructure investment," Perkins said. In the city council meeting, Brian Goetz, Deputy Director of Public Works, said that the city is currently testing filter systems. Amico said that the mayor recommended that she take their request to the school board. In a statement, Portsmouth Superintendent Stephen Zadravec said: "We follow the recommendations of the city's Water Division when it comes to the water coming into our schools. The link below would take you to the information on the water and all testing results. As you will see, all tests done are well below the established advisory level in the parts per trillion. At this point there is no recommendation to install filters." However, a compromise appears on the horizon. "Everybody's in agreement that that action that needs to happen," Perkins said. "I think we're all just trying to figure out when and what method is best." Amico said she's hopeful, but the long term health of her family is her top priority. "I don't ever think I'm going to stop worrying about how this could impact them." Police in Vermonts Northeast Kingdom are looking for tips that can help them catch a church vandal. Someone hurled an empty malt liquor bottle through a stained-glass window at St. Ignatius Catholic Church in Lowell, leaving shards of broken glass on the floor and some pews inside. The damage was reported Saturday afternoon. The parish priest told necn affiliate NBC 5 News that he doesnt know why anyone would do thiswhether it was some sort of attempt at a prank, or something worse. No matter the motive, the damage brought stress and disappointment to the church community, especially since it happened so close to Easter. St. Ignatius said it expects itll have to cover the first $500 in damage costs, with insurance kicking in if repairs are more expensive than that. The church was working Tuesday on assessing damage and reporting estimates to start the repair process. "The best resolution is for the person to come and introduce themselves," Rev. Timothy Naples told NBC 5 News. "Just the handshake and the introduction and the offer to pay is more than restitution for what's been done here." Vermont State Police at the barracks in Derby would like to hear from anyone who might have seen anything suspicious outside the church this past weekend. Communications giant opens 'flagship facility' and moves employees from Newbury MULTI-BILLION pound communications company Nokia has opened new offices in West Berkshire. The Finnish company has relocated around 250 staff to Arlington Business Park in Theale. Employees have been moved from Newbury, Swindon and Fleet into the 30,000sq ft offices and will work in roles including administration, software design, customer support and sales. Nokia said that it chose Theale because of its location and excellent transport links and airport access, with many of its customers located within easy reach. The new offices were opened by Finnish ambassador to the UK Paivi Luostarinen at a ceremony on Monday, February 19. Nokia UK and Ireland chief executive Cormac Whelan said: Were delighted to be opening the new flagship facility and, in particular, about what this means for Nokia as a business. More centrally located to our UK customer base, the new offices will not only form the strategic epicentre for regional activity, but allow us to expand our capacity to showcase a broad portfolio of technology and solutions in a collaborative environment. Commercial real estate investor and developer Praxis has let 33,000 sq ft of its Hive campus at Arlington Business Park in Theale to the Finnish company. NEW MILFORD The superintendent of schools and members of the police department addressed the communitys school safety concerns at a forum Monday, sharing what measures are already in place and discussing what else can be done. The crowd of 50 people included teachers and students, but was mostly made up of parents. Many of the questions were connected to what happened at the high school shooting in Parkland, Fla., and what New Milford was doing to prevent something similar from occurring in town. This included the number of doors open at the beginning and end of the day, fire drills and protocols for what to do if something happened while students are outside. Police Chief Shawn Boyne assured the audience that New Milford responds differently than the collective entrance the sheriffs office in Florida used, where officers assemble in a group before entering. The department has been criticized for waiting to enter the building. In New Milford, officers are trained for an immediate response where the first to come engages the threat. Were a small department, so we dont have time for a collective entrance, he said. We have a good, confident, qualified response. We train, train, train. All of the students and teachers also train for what to do in a shooting, though some parents said the drills should be done more often. Boyne said police departments across the state are wrapping up updates to their protocols based on a statewide plan to ensure all are familiar with the procedures and can assist another department if needed. Once the states document is completed, it will be used to help update New Milfords plan, which is being revised. Another challenge is funding. The district has spent about $750,000 on school safety, budgeting an annual $18,000 to update or add cameras. Some of the measures, including panic buttons at all of the schools and blinds or covers for every first-floor window, were paid for using a competitive state grant for school security, which was discontinued in 2016. Its now solely on the taxpayer, Superintendent of Schools Joshua Smith said. Some parents suggested the schools ask voters to approve funding or use the landfill settlement fund to fully secure the buildings. They talked of measures like placing a shatter-resistant film on all of the first- floor windows and doors. These are options that arent available until theres a public outcry, Boyne said. Maybe its time to start crying out. He said it costs about $300,000 for the three school resource officers in place now. Boyne said the best tool is awareness and training staff and students. He said all of the safety guards in place will be useless if a person props a door open with a rock. Smith and Boyne said they take every threat seriously and then use a variety of measures to determine the viability, such as speaking with the parents and student who made the threat, assessing how the threat was made and if its happened before. Another critical part of school safety is mental health training and helping students in crisis. NEW MILFORD Town residents have suggested a wide range of topics for consideration by the recently appointed Charter Review Commission, from creating the post of town manager to expanding the role of the finance board to combining the planning and zoning commissions. Councilman Paul Szymanski, who chairs the 12-member commission, said he hopes a revision will eliminate confusion in the charter about several important issues. The town charter requires the document to be reviewed every five years, but it has been 12 years since the last review commission was appointed. During a public hearing last week, one of the major topics discussed was whether New Milford should hire a town manager, and if so, whether that position should be in addition to or in place of that of the mayor. Many at last Wednesdays meeting supported creating the position. This town has grown beyond what a mayor in a two-year term is presumed to handle, said Carlos Caridad, who served on the last Charter Revision Commission. Jeff Winter said an experienced, high-caliber town manager could handle ordinary administration, freeing the mayor perhaps a part-time one to focus on larger policy issues. Now you have people who are really smart to run the town, while someone with experience can run the day-to-day, Winter said, adding that town managers are common in his native state of Minnesota. Others agreed, adding that the mayors existing two-year term isnt long enough to accomplish much, given the learning curve for someone new to the job. Another suggestion was to extend the term limits to four years for the mayor and council members. Several residents also suggested the commission look at the role of the finance board in overseeing use of capital reserves and bond proceeds, and especially in revising the budget in the event voters reject it. Town Council is at present the only body to revisit the budget after a voter rejection. Some speakers also suggested that if voters reject either the town or school budget that only the failing budget needs to be revisited, instead of both, as is now required. Another request was to discuss whether the charter should include language concerning special funds, including who has the authority to draw from them. The suggestion was prompted by recent arguments over the use of the landfill settlement fund. Other topics suggested included setting rules for replacing third-party elected officials who resign mid-term. The commission will also look at the size of appointed commissions, the length of their terms and start dates. The commission will meet on April 4, April 18, May 2 and May 16, although more dates might be added depending on the workload. Each meeting is expected to focus on one topic and include opportunities for public comment, as well as presentations from department heads or counterparts from other towns with experience in such topics. Were looking to make it a constructive dialogue every meeting, Szymanski said, adding any other ideas can be emailed to charterrevision@newmilford.org. Another public hearing will be scheduled once the commission completes a draft document but before it is sent to Town Council for a public hearing. The proposed charter amendment is expected to be included on the ballot in November. The more people who get involved with the charter and have a voice, the more will be invested in the end product, Taylor said. To the Editor: As far as turning the former John Pettibone School into a community center, I think it is not worth the expense and is unnecessary since the New Milford Public Library is the closest thing to it, with access to books, newspapers, magazines, computers, a children and teenage section as well as ongoing programs, lectures and movies. In addition, the library is fully staffed, resulting in a safe, professionally supervised environment. Supporting and expediting the expansion and modernization of the library would bring about additional programs, less cramped areas and provide greater resident enjoyment. The John Pettibone School is a large purpose built structure that is not easily altered without considerable expense, plus the layout is not conducive to a modern community center. It is better suited for the consolidation and relocation of municipal departments under one roof. I firmly believe that the school should be saved for town use and not sold. To give a perspective on what a modern community center can be, on our visit to a medium-sized Canadian city a few years ago, the community center building consisted of a large, modern, multi-story structure with a glassed-in indoor, Olympic-sized swimming pool, a rock climbing wall, gymnasium, myriad craft rooms and full-sized library, all under one roof. This type of facility reflects the current likes and interests of our modern generation. Michael Cherney New Milford Image Credit: Razvan Stroie / Shutterstock The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is looking deeper at the tobacco levels in the flavoured tobacco products closely. These menthol or fruit flavoured cigarettes are more appealing to young people who take up smoking, they find. These have also escaped the regulations regarding tobacco usage for years now. The FDA released a statement yesterday (20th March 2018) calling for more information about flavored cigars and electronic cigarettes. Both of these have no restrictions in terms of flavours. The 2009 law permitted by the Congress brought tobacco under FDA regulation. In this menthol cigarettes were the only ones that were spared. FDA since then has been trying to regulate the ingredients and minimize harm but has always been facing a wall from the industry. In their statement the FDA says that these flavoured preparations tend to appeal to young smokers. Over half of the underage smokers, the report says, are smoking menthols. Menthols are favoured by only 36 percent of the adult smokers. This comes from a large government survey. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement, The thought of any child starting down a path of a lifelong addiction to tobacco, which could ultimately lead to their death, is unacceptable. We need to take every effort to prevent kids from getting hooked on nicotine For years we have recognized that flavors in these products appeal to kids and promote youth initiation. It was in 2011 that a panel of experts had recommended FDA to ban the mentholated cigarettes because it raises the risk of young people getting hooked to cigarettes. It also makes these smokers resistant to quitting. Cigarette manufacturers at the time sued the FDA and stopped this move. They claimed that several of the panelists had conflicts of interest and thus their recommendation could not be accepted by the agency. The agency won the argument but the ban never happened. Another report on the harm of menthols came forth in the 2013 with no ban from the FDA. Gottlieb said that there are information available on how mentholated e cigarettes are helping smokers quit. And the agency would consider all sides and take into account, among other things, the risks and benefits to the population as a whole, before taking any steps. Last week the FDA called for public comment on reduction of nicotine content in cigarettes. In this new statement they are asking for public opinion and comments on how these flavours can make cigarettes, and other tobacco products more addictive and this more dangerous especially to the youth. FDA may consider restrictions on the sale and distribution of flavored tobacco products, the notice read. The FDA comment period will be open for the next 90 days for public comment. Tobacco kills millions due to the ailments associated with it. This includes heart disease and cancer that kills around half a million Americans a year. Disclaimer - This is a research project in the UK and is only eligible for participants in the UK. Are you aged 50 years or above, currently working in the UK and have previously experienced depression? If so, we would like to hear from you! What is the research about? This study will explore the older workers' experiences of depression. We are interested in your experiences of depression in the contemporary workplace. Participation is voluntary. Your details will be kept confidential. Any information you provide will be anonymised. What would be involved? Taking part in a SKYPE or telephone interview (approx. 60 minutes). Sharing your experiences (benefits and challenges) of being an older worker who had depression. lf you are the first person to be recruited, your interview will be for the piloting of the study although your interview will still be included in the final analysis. What are the benefits of taking part? Our findings will help organisations to better support the needs of older workers with depression. Interested in participating? Interested in participating? For more details, please email Toyin Adewunmi [email protected] Faster computations will allow researchers to see the finer details of brain activity in functional brain imaging. A computationally efficient data processing scheme will make it possible to see correlations in brain activity between different parts of the brain at unprecedented resolution. The statistics-based computation scheme, developed by KAUST researchers, also tackles one of the most critical problems of medical and biological imaging-how to process imaging data fast enough to realize the full exploratory power of the latest high-resolution imaging techniques. The development of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in the early 1990s was one of those true Eureka moments for brain research. Using existing noninvasive MRI technology, fMRI maps the distribution of blood oxygen in the brain, which is closely correlated with brain activity. With fMRI, it is possible to take snapshots of brain activity in response to specific stimuli, such as speech, responding to memory questions or visual scenes. While fMRI is capable of taking high-resolution images consisting of hundreds of thousands of points or 'voxels,' it is an enormous computational task to map the correlations between simultaneous brain function across different areas of the brain. Even with the range of computing power available today such computations are not feasible by direct methods and so require a more computationally efficient approach. Marc Genton and Hernando Ombao from KAUST, in collaboration with Stefano Castruccio from the University of Notre Dame in the United States, have addressed this problem. They developed a statistics-based computational scheme that matches activity in different parts of the brain at different spatial scales, from whole-of-brain to smaller regional structures and down to the tiniest brain volume. "Using a statistical approach, our multiresolution approach essentially breaks up the spatial component of the fMRI data into different scales-from global to local," says Ombao. Developed as part of a collaboration with the stroke rehabilitation center at the University of California Irvine, the computation scheme calculates the statistical 'shape' of increasingly large populations of activity readings in a way that lends itself readily to distributed computing, making it highly efficient. Not only does this solve the computational issue, it improves the interpretability of results, ensuring that the connectivity between activities can be characterized both within each brain region and across different brain regions. "It is important to take into account how spatially separated neuronal units communicate with each other in modeling fMRI data in order to avoid misleading results, such as false activations, or an inability to detect activity." says Ombao. "Correct identification of activated and inactivated units will help us to improve our understanding of human brain function in both healthy and diseased populations." ? Results of a study carried out in Brazil showed a strong association between vitamin D deficiency and metabolic syndrome in postmenopausal women. The Metabolic syndrome (MetS), described as a cluster of conditions that heighten the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes, is estimated to affect approximately 50% of the female population above the age of 50 in the United States. Researchers at Sao Paulo State University's Botucatu Medical School (FMB-UNESP) detected MetS in 57.8% of the women analyzed with vitamin D insufficiency (20-29 nanograms per milliliter of blood) or deficiency (less than 20 ng/ml) and in only 39.8% of participants with sufficient vitamin D (30 ng/ml or more). MetS is estimated to affect approximately 50% of the female population above the age of 50 in the United States. The results of the study, which was supported by the Sao Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP, were published in the journal Maturitas. The study population consisted of 463 women aged between 45 and 75. They were monitored for two years at FMB-UNESP's Climacteric & Menopause Outpatient Clinic. Their last menstruation occurred at least 12 months previously, and they had no existing or pre-existing heart problems. To indicate whether or not the patient had MetS, the study adopted the typical parameters for MetS diagnosis: waist circumference above 88 cm, high blood pressure (above 130/85 mmHg), high blood sugar (fasting glucose above 100 mg/dL), and abnormal levels of triglycerides (above 150 mg/dL) and cholesterol (HDL below 50 mg/dL). MetS was diagnosed if three or more of these criteria were met. "We measured the participants' blood vitamin D levels and also analyzed parameters indicating MetS. We found that the lower the level of blood vitamin D, the greater the occurrence of MetS. The results suggest that supplementing and maintaining adequate levels of vitamin D in postmenopausal women can reduce the risk of disease," said Eliana Aguiar Petri Nahas, a professor in FMB-UNESP's Department of Gynecology & Obstetrics and one of the authors of the study. Previous studies described the existence of several mechanisms that might explain the effect of vitamin D on the components of MetS. According to the article, the most plausible explanation for the association is that vitamin D influences insulin secretion and sensitivity, which play a major role in MetS. "The vitamin D receptor is expressed in insulin-secreting pancreatic beta cells and in peripheral target tissues such as skeletal muscle and adipose tissue. Vitamin D deficiency can compromise the capacity of beta cells to convert pro-insulin to insulin," wrote the researchers of the FAPESP-funded project. According to the researchers, however, more studies are needed to confirm the link. "The objective of the study was to evaluate the association between vitamin D deficiency and risk factors for MetS in postmenopausal women," they write in the article. Extra-osseous effects In a previous study, the UNESP researchers also analyzed the association between vitamin D deficiency and breast cancer in postmenopausal women. The survey involved 192 women aged 45-75 with a recent diagnosis of breast cancer and in amenorrhea for over 12 months. Levels of vitamin D were sufficient in 33.9% of the patients and insufficient or deficient in 66.1%. A higher proportion of those with vitamin D insufficiency or deficiency had high-grade tumors or metastatic disease. The researchers on this team are advancing the understanding of the effects of vitamin D on chronic diseases such as obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and consequently MetS, as well as breast cancer. "The importance of vitamin D to bone mass is well understood, especially in helping absorb calcium into the bones," Nahas said. "Now, we're studying the extra-osseous effects of vitamin D on the cardiovascular system and on the breasts. These are the focus for our current study. In recent years, associations have been proposed between vitamin D deficiency and both inflammation and cardiometabolic diseases. However, more information is needed on the link between vitamin D and cardioinflammatory markers in the general population." According to Nahas, aging is a key factor in vitamin D deficiency. "Exposure to the sun activates a sort of pre-vitamin D in the adipose tissue under the skin," she explained. "Aging leads not just to loss of muscle mass but also to changes in body composition, and this pre-vitamin D is lost. That's why older people produce less vitamin D even if they get plenty of sunlight." Forthcoming research planned by the group will focus on isolated vitamin D supplementation and indicators of cardiovascular disease in postmenopausal women. "More studies are required in order to make these important associations in terms of the effects of supplementation on cardiometabolic syndrome, the immune and inflammatory mechanisms of cardiovascular disease in postmenopausal women, and their quality of life," Nahas said. In her view, postmenopausal women deserve and require more specific care. They should seek medical advice on the need for vitamin D supplementation. "Hypovitaminosis can have repercussions, be it on breast cancer, vascular disease or metabolic syndrome," she said. Tata Motors plans to bring in new products in order to have presence in around 95 percent of Indian passenger vehicles market by 2020, besides working on offering "electric solution" on most of its portfolio going forward. The company currently sells a range of vehicles from hatchback to SUVs playing in about 70 percent of the market in India. "Our resolve is that by 2020, we will cover 95 percent of the market with various kinds of products," Tata Motors President, Passenger Vehicles Business Unit, Mayank Pareek told PTI on the sidelines of Geneva Motor Show. With the addition of new products and enhanced play in the segment, the company would be able to ramp up its market share, which currently stands at around 7 percent, he added. Commenting on the drive for electric vehicles (EVs) in India, Pareek said the company believed that there was a need to strongly back electric mobility. "It is a very good solution for a country like us. We are energy starved and our cities are polluted," Pareek said. Speaking about Tata Motors' plans for EVs, he said,"We are committed that most of the products we have should have an electric solution going forward. It will happen". Currently, Tata Motors offers only Tigor with electric powertrain in passenger vehicles segment. It is also planning to come out with an electric version of its compact hatchback Tiago. When asked about company's sales outlook for the next fiscal, Pareek said that the company would grow better than the industry. "According to our estimate, industry (PV segment) will grow by 7-9 percent and we will certainly grow better than the industry," he added. The company has already done better in terms of sales in the current fiscal as compared with 2016-17, Pareek said. On sales network expansion, Pareek said the company aims to almost double its sales outlets by 2020. "Three years back we had around 400 outlets. Now, we have around 800. By 2020 we will go up to 1,500," he added. Besides, physical outlets the company would also expand the new format for sale which is based on digital technology, Pareek said. In order to bring in more customers to the company's fold, the company is in the process of revamping its dealer network currently, he added. Also Watch: Top Five Performance Cars at Geneva Motor Show 2018 | Cars18 Mumbai: In what could further delay the resolution of Essar Steel that owes over Rs 45,000 crore to lenders, the SBI-led consortium of creditors on Wednesday rejected the bids by Numetal, an SPV floated by Russian lender VTB Bank and Rewant Ruia, and ArcelorMittal, finding them ineligible under the IBC laws that debar related parties from bidding. The decision to reject both the bids was taken at a meeting of the committee of creditors (CoC) of Essar Steel in Mumbai on Wednesday, a banking source said, adding however, they have voted to allow a second round of bidding for the nearly crippled 10-million tonne-asset at Hazira in Gujarat. "They (Numetal and ArcelorMittal) were found to be ineligible under Section 29 A of the amended IBC. They did not fall under the satisfactory criterion that the defaulting promoters' link should not be there or connected persons should not be there in the new company that is bidding," a banking source told PTI in Mumbai. Numetal and ArcelorMittal were the only two bidders for Essar Steel which owe the banks over Rs 45,000 crore. These companies have put up their bids on February 12 but have since been battling with each other amidst questions about their very eligibility to bid. Even though the Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal has teamed up with Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp to bid for Essar Steel, it has been found ineligible for its joint venture with Uttam Galva, which is at the NCLT awaiting resolution now, and Numetal's bid was done in by the fact that one of the promoters of the special purpose vehicle is Rewant Ruia, the son of an Essar Group promoter Ravi Ruia, one of the original promoters of Essar Steel. Bankers, however said if these companies delinked their connection from the promoters or standardise their loans they can bid again in the second round of bidding. The lenders have set an April 2 deadline for the second round of bidding for Essar Steel that owes over Rs 45,000 crore to over 30 banks and other creditors. But this is unlikely to yield the desired results as biggies like Tata Steel, the Anil Aggrawal-led Vedanta and JSW Steel have reportedly decided against bidding for Essar Steel. The shareholders of the Mauritius-based Numetal, a special purpose vehicle that focuses on steel and infra space along with manufacturing, are VTB Capital, the PE arm of the Russian state-owned lender VTB Bank and Aurora Trusts in which Rewant Ruia is a beneficiary and owns 25 per cent. The other promoters include the Russian steel and engineering major TyazhPromExports (TPE) and Indo International, a Dubai-based metals trading firm promoted by an NRI. VTB Capital owns majority in Numetal. Bids of these firms were evaluated by resolution professional Satish Kumar Gupta, along with risk advisory Grant Thornton and law firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas. The rejection comes a day after Numetal moved the Ahmedabad NCLT seeking to declare its eligibility, as it apprehended that all the full facts it submitted to the RP were not assessed properly. Earlier in the day, Numetal in a statement had said it had filed an application the Ahemdabad bench of NCLT to declare its elegibility as it "apprehends that full facts submitted by it for eligibility to submit a resolution plan have not been appropriately assessed by the RP." An industry observer said following the rejection of its bid, Numetal may ask Rewant Ruia to exit the firm, something that the company was anyway ready to do. "If public perception is a challenge because of the presence of Rewant Ruia in Numetal or his minority investment in the company, we are ready to change that," Antoine Chemali, a senior advisor at Numetal Mauritius, had told PTI last week. "We've already spoken to him (Rewant) and are ready to do whatever it takes us to win the Essar Steel bid. We, the rest of the shareholders, are ready to buy out his minority stake from Numetal," Chemali added. But he was quick to point out that Rewant did not have any say in the management of Numetal or enjoyed a board position. And an Essar Group official also told PTI that Rewant had resigned from the Essar Steel way back in 2012, and thus in no way was related to the Essar Steel promoters now. It can be noted that both Numetal and ArcelorMittal had threatened to challenge NCLT and RP in higher courts if their bids were rejected, forcing government to recently hint that it was amenable to make more changes to Section 29 of the IBC Act to redefine "connected/related parties" to exclude only original promoters who are defaulters from bidding for an asset that has gone to kaput and went to the bankruptcy court. The move is to distinguish between the promoters of defaulting companies that don't have a managerial role from those who also manage the stressed assets. As per media reports, the corporate affairs ministry is considering two amendments to change the definition of "connected people" as per the IBC Code. Now, a promoter or investor in a defaulter is not eligible to participate in the auction of stressed assets referred to NCLT. As per the IBC code, bids should be presented to the committee of creditors at least a month before the deadline, which in the case of Essar Steel is April 29. The Mittals have also reportedly offered to pay 50 per cent of its dues to lenders so that it becomes eligible to bid, something the new Section 29 A allows. LIVE NOW auto-refresh LIVE NOW News LIVE: Congress, BJP Level Charges at Each Other Over Cambridge Analytica Links Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has alleged that the Congress party had links with Cambridge Analytica. "My question to Congress party is whether to win elections, Congress will depend on data manipulation and theft of data," he said. News18.com | March 21, 2018, 16:17 IST Richard Appiah Akoto, (who goes by the username Owura Kwadwo Hottish), a computer teacher at the Betenase M-A Junior High School in Ghana, went insanely viral on the Internet after he shared photographs of his classroom where he drew an entire interface of Microsoft Word window simply because his school didn't have computers. Akoto's determination to teach his students despite lacking proper equipment was lauded by many on social media users. But here's some good news for the hardworking teacher as well as his students. Courtesy Akoto's viral photographs, NIIT Ghana-- a subsidiary of the Indian firm, decided to donate five computers, a laptop, and books to his school, reported the Hindustan Times. Speaking to Hindustan Times, Ashish Kumar, the NIIT centre manager in Accra said, We saw the news getting viral on Facebook and other social media platforms. We were so touched by the teachers dedication to his students that we decided to support the school with the best we could do as an IT training organisation." We took a printout of the post, pasted it on our notice board and discussed the matter with our group CEO Kapil Gupta. He is the one who decided to sponsor five new desktops and books for the school and a new laptop for the teacher as a part of our social and corporate responsibility, Kumar futher added. Not only this, the District Chief Executive for the area has promised to setup an ICT centre with the computers which will help the entire community, wrote NIIT Ghana in a Facebook post. The firm has donated five computers and books for the students. While Akoto was awarded a laptop for his dedication towards his proferssion and the students. Taking to Facebook, NIIT Ghana shared photographs and wrote, "This was after a picture of the teacher teaching MS Word on the blackboard went viral on social media. NIIT Ghana has donated new desktop computers and relevant textbooks to the school. The District Chief Executive for the area has promised to setup an ICT centre with the computers which will help the entire community. The school children are extremely happy with the opportunity they now have to learn ICT with real computers. The industrious teacher was presented with a laptop. The teacher will also benefit from a training package at Niit Kumasi." But this isn't the first time that Akoto or his students have received donations. Tech giant Microsoft kept its promise after it flew Akoto to Singapore to attend the annual Microsoft Educators Exchange training for free of cost. A couple of weeks ago, Amirah Alharthi, a PhD student in Leeds' department of statistics, sent a laptop to the teacher. "I always understand from the teachings of Islam that useful knowledge is crucial for the benefit of the self and humanity," Amirah Alharthi told CNN. "Also, I am thinking of how much genius people the world has already lost because these people did not have the fair opportunities comparing to others and that makes me very sad," Alharthi added. Bengaluru: Sometime in early 1950s, during the height of Karnataka Ekeekarana Andolana (Karnataka Unification Movement), top leaders of the Vokkaliga caste had gathered at a house in central Bengaluru to decide the future course of action. All of them were Congress leaders and had participated in the freedom movement. Most had impeccable personal credentials. But majority of them were not too enthusiastic about the unification of all Kannada speaking areas under one administration. They had many reasons for that. Some argued that Maharajas Mysore or Old Mysore was already a well-developed model state, and merging poor Mumbai- Karnataka and Hyderabad Karnataka regions would be a burden on the state exchequer and resources. Others had bigger fears. They argued that once all Kannada speaking areas unite, the Vokkaligas will lose their caste dominance, paving way for the Lingayat hegemony. Two most powerful castes of the state were wary of each other even then. But the then chief minister of old Mysore state, Kengal Hanumanthaiah, was all for state unification. A freedom fighter and an able administrator, Hanumanthaiah was a tall leader of the Vokkaligas. Vetoing his own caste leaders, Hunumanthaiah told them that future generations of Kannadigas would never forgive them if they oppose unification for caste and political reasons. The Vokkaliga leader threw his might behind the unification movement and the new Mysore state with Kannada-speaking regions of Bombay Presidency including some districts of present-day Karnataka, Nizams Hyderabad, Karnataka, Madras Presidency and an independent, tiny state of Kodagu (Coorg) was born on November 1, 1956. Sadly, Kengal Hanumanthaiah lost power and a Lingayat strongman, S Nijalingappa, took charge as the first chief minister of New Mysore state. As expected the Vokkaligas lost the chief ministers chair to Lingayats and they had to wait for 38 years to reclaim the chair. In 1994, H D Deve Gowda became the first Vokkaliga chief minister of united Karnataka. Between 1956 and 1972, four Lingayat chief ministers (S Nijalingappa, B D Jatti, S R Kanthi and Veerendra Patil) ruled the state. Between 1972 and 1983, a Kshatriya D Devaraja Urs and a Brahmin R Gundurao ruled the state minus much Lingayat backing. Ramakrishna Hegde, who became Karnatakas first non-Congress chief minister in 1983, was also considered a Lingayat leader even though he was a Brahmin. To end Hegdes rule, the then Prime Minister and Congress president Rajiv Gandhi made a Lingayat stalwart Veerendra Patil KPCC president and chief ministerial candidate in 1989. Under his leadership, the Congress swept the polls by winning 181 seats in the 224-member house. After Patil was unceremoniously removed by Rajiv Gandhi at Bengaluru airport in October 1990, the Lingayats once again started moving away from the Congress. In 1994, the combined strength of Lingayats and Vokkaligas decimated the Congress which managed to win just 36 assembly seats under then Chief Minister M Veerappa Moily. These instances prove that without Lingayats backing no political party in Karnataka can really come to power and even if it manages, it may not be able to remain in power for long. Since the unification of state, Lingayats have dominated the socio-political life of Karnataka, forcing the Vokkaligas to play second fiddle to them. With their political and economic power, the Lingayats control the biggest vote bank in the state. Contrary to the recent claims of the saffron parivar, Lingayats are not the traditional backers of the BJP. They were once the backbone of the Congress in Karnataka. After Devaraja Urs ended Lingayat hegemony in the party, they shifted to Janata Parivar. After the disintegration of the Janata experiment, they started backing the BJP and accepted B S Yeddyurappa as their leader. In the present Assembly, there are over 45 Lingayat MLAs. In 1989, there were 89 of them. It came down to 68 in the subsequent assembly polls held in 1994. With Other Backward Classes (OBCs) asserting their power, the Lingayat representation is declining in the Assembly. But they still form 20-25% of the MPs and MLAs from the state irrespective of the party in power. According to political analysts, Lingayats decide the outcome in close to 100 Assembly seats and 14 Lok Sabha seats in the state. In Mumbai Karnataka and Hyderabad Karnataka region they are the deciding factor in about 70 Assembly seats. These two regions together have 94 Assembly seats and 12 Lok Sabha seats. In Vokkaliga-dominated Old Mysore region with 89 Assembly seats, Lingayats play an important role in deciding the fate of candidates in about 30 Assembly seats. According to some unauthenticated data, Lingayats have 30-35% population in 85-90 Assembly seats and they have 10-15% population in 45-50 seats. Even though the Lingayats claim that their population is over 17% of the states total population, the leaked caste census report says they form 14% of the population and count only after Dalits and Muslims with 19.5% and 16% respectively. The Vokkaligas have 11% population, the census reveals. The Siddaramaiah governments audacious move to accord an independent religion tag to Lingayats is being seen as a big political decision of the new millennium. Siddaramaiah knows that winning back the trust of Lingayats is crucial for the Congress in future and it will also weaken the BJP substantially. With majority Vokkaligas firmly supporting Gowdas JDS, breaching BJPs Lingayat fortress would be the most brilliant thing to do only if it works. Siddaramaiah knows that. But will it work? We will get the answer on the day of counting of votes. New Delhi: The Centre has told the Supreme Court that appointment of an office bearer to a political party is a matter of the party's autonomy and it may not be apt to restrain the poll panel from registering a party just because its functionary was disqualified from contesting polls. The Ministry of Law and Justice, in an affidavit filed in response to a plea which sought banning convicted people from forming political parties and becoming their office bearers for the period they are disqualified, also sought to dismiss the PIL saying an order asking the government to make a law in this regard was not maintainable. "It may not be apposite to preclude the Election Commission from registering a political party because a particular post-holder is not qualified to contest elections," the Centre today told the apex court, while seeking to dismiss the plea. The petition, filed by advocate Ashwini Upadhyay, said that now even a person who has been convicted for heinous crimes like murder, rape, smuggling, money laundering, loot, sedition or dacoity can form a political party and become its president. The Centre, in its affidavit, said electoral reforms is a complex, continuous, long drawn and comprehensive process, and the government was making appropriate modifications and additions of relevant laws. "The Union of India referred the issue relating to electoral reforms in its entirety to the Law Commission of India for examination and suggesting plausible recommendations and the commission has since tendered its 255th report on the subject matter which also included the issue of regulation of political parties and inner party democracy and after having detailed deliberations on the issue, the law commission has made many suggestions in respect of the issue espoused in the petition," the Centre said. Upadhyay claimed that in 2004, the poll panel had proposed amendment to Section 29A of the Representation of of the People Act, 1951, authorising it to issue apt orders regulating the registration or de-registration of political parties. The Centre, in the affidavit, refuted this claim of Upadhyay saying, "In fact, the said report has suggested empowering the ECI to de-register parties in certain situations, none of which are relatable to existence of criminal antecedents of a post-holders of a political party." The petition named several top political leaders who have been convicted or have charges framed against them and were holding the highest political posts and "wielding political power." New Delhi: The Centre on Wednesday sought the Supreme Court's permission to allow the CEO of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) for a PowerPoint presentation on Aadhaar scheme in the court to allay concerns. Chief Justice Dipak Misra, hearing a number of pleas challenging the constitutional validity of Aadhaar and its enabling Act, said he will fix the time for the presentation after discussing the matter with other judges of the five-judge constitution bench he is heading. The bench said there are several technical aspects related to the Aadhaar scheme such as the surveillance, data security and exclusion of certain people from receiving benefits for the want of either authentication or the lack of Aadhaar number. Attorney General K K Venugopal, who argued for the Centre, said the UIDAI chief executive may deal with technical aspects with more clarity. He said the Fundamental Rights enshrined in the Indian Constitution have two aspects. One deals with rights like Right to Food and Right to Education and the other pertains to Freedom of Conscience and Right to Privacy, Venugopal said. The question is which aspect will prevail, he said, adding that the fundamental rights like the Right to Life should prevail over Right to Conscience and Privacy. He is continuing with his submission. The Supreme Court yesterday took note of the submission that a person cannot be asked to part with personal information under the Aadhaar scheme on the ground of freedom of right to religion, and asked can a person refuse to follow the law in secular matters such as filing of income-tax returns. The constitution bench was told that a boy was denied admission in a school after his father refused to give biometric details for Aadhaar on grounds that their religion does not permit it. "In secular matters, can you say that I will not opt for it. For example, can a person refuse to opt for the Income-Tax saying that his conscience does not allow it," the bench said. Earlier, the apex court was told that the collection of biometric details of citizens by the UIDAI from 2010 onwards till 2016, when the enabling Aadhaar law came into force, was "illegal" and "invalid" and the collected data deserved to be destroyed. The court has extended the March 31 deadline for linking of Aadhaar to avail various services and welfare schemes run by the government until it delivers its verdict on the validity of the 12-digit biometric number and its enabling law. New Delhi: The Centre on Wednesday faced demands from the Congress and a Dalit group to seek a review of the judgment of the Supreme Court that protects public servants and private employees from arbitrary arrests under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The judgment pronounced on Tuesday was described as unfortunate with the Congress claiming it had led to a "sense of insecurity" among Dalits and other oppressed classes. In a bid to protect honest public servants discharging bonafide duties from being blackmailed with false cases under the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes Act, the apex court diluted its stringent provisions mandating immediate arrest under the law. The top court said that on "several occasions", innocent citizens were being termed as accused and public servants deterred from performing their duties, which was never the intention of the legislature while enacting the law. Alleging a rise in atrocities against dalits under the NDA government, the Congress expressed serious concern over the judgment and demanded a review of the same or an amendment in the law. Congress senior spokesperson Anand Sharma asked the government to clarify its stand on the issue, claiming there was a "sense of insecurity" among Dalits and other oppressed classes after the apex court verdict. "There is serious concern over yesterday's decision of the Supreme Court. If it is not reviewed, it will be very unfortunate. There is a feeling on insecurity among the SC/STs and other oppressed classes. We feel there should be a review of this decision which will be in national interest. "Why is the government silent on this issue? Government should clarify its stand and should present its version before the Supreme Court through the Attorney General. If the government remains silent, it means that the government supports the decision," Sharma told reporters. Party MP Kumari Selja alleged that the development is a result of the BJP-RSS policy, as they are "conspiring to end reservation". The Chief Whip of Congress in Lok Sabha, Jyotiraditya Scindia, said the BJP and RSS want to end reservation and neither the prime minister nor any minister in the government has so far given any clarification the issue. Congress Communications incharge Randeep Sujewala claimed that the Centre and the Maharashtra Government, which were a party to the case, did not present their point of view properly. He alleged that there was a rise in the number of cases of atrocities against dalits and other oppressed in society. He said either this verdict should be reviewed or a fresh amendment be made in the Act. The executive committee of the Dalit Shoshan Mukti Manch (DSMM) appealed to the Centre to challenge the judgement, arguing it would have a "negative impact" on the concept of social justice. The manch expressed its grave concern over the verdict and dubbed it as "unfortunate". The manch demanded that the Centre file a review petition immediately so that the SC/ST Act remains effective, general secretary of the organisation and former MP Ramchandra Dom said in a statement. "This judgement has a negative impact on the concept of social justice which is a basic principle enshrined in the Constitution," he said. The Supreme Court has "most unfortunately" modified Section 18 of the Act in the name of misuse'. The truth is that in cases of atrocities against SCs and STs not only is the conviction rate "very low" but there is "delay at every stage" from filing chargesheets to proceeding with the matters in court, he claimed. New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought response of former telecom minister A Raja, DMK MP Kanimozhi and others on the CBI's plea challenging their acquittal by a special court in the 2G spectrum case. A similar order was passed by Justice S P Garg on the plea of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) challenging their acquittal in the money laundering case arising out of the 2G scam case. While issuing notices to Raja, Kanimozhi and others in the two cases, the court asked them to file their responses before the next date of hearing on May 25. The court also allowed the interim plea of the ED, represented by Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Tushar Mehta, for maintaining status quo with regard to the properties worth around Rs 223 crore which the agency had attached in the money laundering case. The ED did not want the properties to be released from attachment, a consequence of the acquittal in the money laundering case, saying that third party rights might be created in them. While granting the agency's request for status quo, the court also asked why it had come so late if it wanted that relief. The court was initially not inclined to pass any interim order staying the release of attachment without first hearing the other side. However, after the ASG cited past judgements in which such orders have been passed, the court ordered that status quo be maintained regarding the properties attached by the ED. On March 19, the ED moved the high court challenging the special court's order acquitting all the accused in the money laundering case arising out of the 2G scam. On Tuesday, the CBI too challenged in the high court the acquittal of the accused in the case. A special court on December 21 last year had acquitted Raja, Kanimozhi and others in the CBI and ED cases. Besides Raja and Kanimozhi, the special court had acquitted 17 others, including DMK supremo M Karunanidhi's wife Dayalu Ammal, Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka of STPL, Asif Balwa and Rajiv Aggarwal of Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables Pvt Ltd, film producer Karim Morani, P Amirtham and Sharad Kumar, Director of Kalaignar TV in the ED case. The ED, in its charge sheet, had alleged that Rs 200 crore was paid by Swan Telecom (P) Ltd (STPL) promoters to DMK-run Kalaignar TV. On the same day, the trial court had acquitted Raja, Kanimozhi and 15 others, including former Telecom Secretary Siddharth Behura, Raja's erstwhile private secretary R K Chandolia, Swan Telecom promoters Shahid Usman Balwa and Vinod Goenka, Unitech Ltd MD Sanjay Chandra and three top executives of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (RADAG) -- Gautam Doshi, Surendra Pipara and Hari Nair, in the CBI's 2G case. The CBI had alleged that there was a loss of Rs 30,984 crore to the exchequer in allocation of licences for the 2G spectrum which were scrapped by the top court on February 2, 2012. Special Judge O P Saini, however, had held that the prosecution had "miserably failed" to prove the charges. The special court, which was set up on March 14, 2011 for hearing 2G cases exclusively, had also acquitted Essar Group promoters Ravi Kant Ruia and Anshuman Ruia and six others in a separate case arising out of the 2G scam probe. The first case, prosecuted by CBI, had 17 accused, while the second matter, pursued by ED, had 19 undertrials. The third one had eight accused including Essar promoters. In the CBI case, Raja, Kanimozhi and 15 others were tried under provisions of the IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act dealing with offences of criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery, using as genuine fake documents, abusing official position, criminal misconduct by public servant and taking bribe. Lucknow: Days after SP-BSP triumph in UP bypolls, the Samajwadi Party is all geared up for a dinner party at a five-star hotel in the state capital on Wednesday evening, where nearly 200 members of the party will be present. While celebrations may not come as a surprise, the timing of the so-called dinner diplomacy has come under political spotlight. The guest list of the dinner, being hosted two days before the Rajya Sabha polls, is even more interesting. The list includes SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, his brother Shivpal Yadav, cousin Ram Gopal Yadav and son Akhilesh, who were said to come together in the public for the first time since differences cropped up in the family ahead of the 2016 Assembly elections. However, just a few hours before the dinner, Shivpal left for his hometown, Saifai. Earlier in the day, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav had called a meeting to discuss Rajya Sabha election, but Shivpal and six other MLAs remained absent from the meeting. Of the 47 MLAs, 40 were present in Wednesday's meeting. According to reports, Shivpal Yadav has gone to Saifai for co-operative body elections. Meanwhile, SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav may also give the dinner a miss as he is unwell. Another important guest this evening will be Independent MLA Raghuraj Pratap Singh, aka Raja Bhaiyya, who was a member of Akhilesh cabinet but had better relations with Mulayam Singh Yadav. His presence at the dinner will put to rest speculations over his voting for BJP in Rajya Sabha election along with his close aide and Babaganj MLA Vinod Saroj, who is also an Independent legislator. The differences between Bhaiyya and Samjadwadi Party started doing rounds after the SP-BSP understanding for the recent bypolls, which irked the Thakur leader as he had been imprisoned during the BSP regime. Being well aware of this fact, the BJP has been trying to take advantage of the situation. In fact, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has also called for a meeting of all party MLAs at his residence in the evening to chalk out the partys strategy as it lacks numbers in the Rajya Sabha. The Samajwadi Party dinner can be seen as an attempt by the party to keep all its members intact, especially after senior leader Naresh Agrawal joined BJP recently. Since then, Agrawal has been saying in press conferences that his son Nitin will also be joining BJP soon, making it clear that Nitin will be voting for the saffron camp. Despite Nishad Partys Chief Sanjay Nishads son Praveen Nishad winning Gorakhpur in the recent bypolls, its lone MLA Vijay Mishra has openly announced that he will vote for BJP in the tenth Rajya Sabha election. Denying any political angle to the dinner, the host, SP MLA from Gauriganj, Rakesh Pratap Singh, described the event as a get together of Samajwadi Parivar. It is a celebration of partys victory in recently concluded Lok Sabha bypolls in Gorakhpur and Phulpur, he said refuting reports that the dinner was an event to consolidate the partys position ahead of Rajya Sabha elections. He said the idea came up during a meeting with SP president Akhilesh and senior leaders and claims choosing the invitees himself. New Delhi: India is not considering any proposal to sign the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty (NPT) as a precondition for joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the Lok Sabha was told on Wednesday. Replying to a written question, Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh also said India's application for NSG membership remains under consideration of the Group. The government continues to engage with the NSG and its members at appropriate levels for a decision on India's application, he said. The minister said though India is not privy to internal discussions of the NSG, it is gathered that while no member explicitly opposes India's membership, procedural objections have been raised ostensibly on the grounds of India's non-NPT status. "India's position on the NPT remains unchanged. There is no proposal under consideration of the Government to sign the NPT as a precondition for joining the NSG," Singh asserted. India's NSG membership bid has been consistently blocked by China despite strong support to New Delhi from several countries, including the US and France. New Delhi: Was INS Arihant, Indias indigenously-produced nuclear-powered ballistic submarine, damaged and left crippled after an accident last year? The information cant be divulged in the interest of national security, the Ministry of Defence told the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. PV Midhun Reddy, YSR Congress MP from Rajampet in Andhra Pradesh, asked the government whether "INS Arihant has suffered major damages; if so, the details thereof; whether the indigenous nuclear submarine has not been able to sail for the last several months now; and if so, the details thereof?" Minister of State (MoS) for Defence, Subhash Bhamre, in his response, said, The information cannot be divulged on the floor of the House in the interest of National Security. This comes amidst media reports that claimed that INS Arihant was damaged in an accident sometime in 2017 and, therefore, was left crippled. The submarine, the report said, had not been able to sail for ten months. The accident reportedly occurred when water had rushed into the propulsion compartment of the submarine and left it damaged. The report cited sources to say that the accident had been caused due to human error. INS Arihant was launched for sea trials in 2009 by then Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and was commissioned into the Indian Navy in August 2016. INS Arihant completed Indias Nuclear Triad, which gives India to launch nuclear warheads from the air, land and sea. It also boost Indias second-strike capability. The accident took place less than a year after the submarine was commissioned. If the reports are to be believed, this would come as a major setback to Indias ambitious plan to have an entire fleet of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines. Srinagar: Sometime in the month of January 1991, a frail figure wearing an oversized fur-coat, constantly checking his watch, hurriedly walked through a deserted street in Srinagar. It was 6:25 in the morning, thirty-five minutes to the blast that could possibly kill dozens. Only the courier knew where it would go off. He hastened his pace, zigzagging through the curfewed streets of the city that was under a siege. Every shop, establishment, and building he encountered on his way were shut. The courier was a local. He had been working with Indias Intelligence Bureau for the last four years and as he walked through the cold mist, he held on tightly to a piece of paper which named the place where the IED was planted and the time it was set to go off. The crumpled piece of paper read: BADAMI BAGH CANTONMENT. 7 AM. He was earlier told to report at Shiraz Cinema if there was any khabar (information). But the presence of the Army, which had occupied the cinema last summer, and a constant vigil by the militants around the area, meant a last minute change in plans. The sleuth he was supposed to meet came up with a different rendezvous point. Meet me at Ahdoos. That is the only place that would be open even on a curfew day, the former Intelligence Bureau officer said in his message. As the courier reached the hotel in the heart of Srinagar, the officer, who was dressed in civil clothes, welcomed him. The message was instantly relayed through a satellite phone and within the next ten minutes, a bomb disposal squad would reach the spot and diffuse the IED. For the next six months, Ahdoos hotel would remain the place where the former IB officer would often meet his courier and receive the information. Then things began to change. The crowds began to swell at the only working hotel in Srinagar, and they were no regular guests. The word had spread that Ahdoos is the place to do business, reminisced the officer, who wished to remain anonymous. The business he referred to, in IBs parlance, had no single definition. When militancy broke out in Jammu and Kashmir, many hoteliers ended up winding their business and vacating the buildings. Most of the hotels were even occupied by the armed forces. The only remaining hotel that entertained any guests was Ahdoos, located at Residency Road in Srinagar. Painted in ceramic white, the most remarkable thing about Ahdoos wasnt its appearance or the scrumptious Kebabs it was known for. It was the only hotel given the adversity the city had faced in recent years which enjoyed a new line of guests. The hotel now had started to attract a hoard of diplomats, foreign journalists, intelligence agents, informers, politicians, and separatists all looking to play their part in the conflict that was raging in the region. This was the place to be. As Ahdoos is about to celebrate its Centennial, guests walk by, seemingly oblivious to the hotels past a microcosm of how murky the Kashmir conflict was. Today, the hotel has become a part of the bustling city, which is now happily a vacation spot. A stark contrast to the city under siege in the 90s. Visitors are no longer confined to the likes of war correspondents and diplomats. In the 90s, Ahdoos was the place where journalists covering the conflict congregated to swap stories, describe what theyve seen, hear briefings from Army generals and militant leaders alike and, of course, write and file their copies. As the city witnessed daily killings and fierce gun battles, Ahdoos kept buzzing with journalists. Thats why, Jawed Naqvi, the DAWN correspondent for New Delhi, believes, Ahdoos was a haunt for parachuting journalism. Naqvi, like many foreign journalists, had stationed himself in Ahdoos during the early 90s. He kept on sourcing his daily stories from the ground and travelled to different parts of the valley, which had been bruised and battered with the raging guns. Naqvi, like every other journalist, would come back to the hotel and file his stories. The hotel corridors remained swarmed with journalists who had their own take on the conflict, Naqvi remembers. But why was Ahdoos so frequented by journalists? It was seen as a safe residence, partly due to where it was situated tucked between other buildings occupied by the Army. The buildings surrounding the hotel usually took the brunt of militant fire, Naqvi said. But the hotel wasnt all about people who file copies, call contacts and write about a war they were not allowed to witness. This theatre had other actors, too. Ahdoos had long been frequented by armed guerrillas from Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF). One such militant commander was Javaid Mir, Naqvi said. Javaid was among the very first militants from Kashmir. Following the 1987 election, which was widely condemned as being rigged, hundreds of disenchanted Muslim United Front (MUF) workers switched to JKLF and trekked to Pakistan seeking arms, training. These militants, when they returned back to the valley, armed and trained, needed to amplify their voice to the outside world. Ahdoos, filled with journalists, was the window to that world. But sneaking into Ahdoos, already under the radar of IB sleuths, wasnt easy. Yet, there were some who dared to sneak in. Javaid was the master of disguise. He used to come and go with ease, and meet journalists, Naqvi said. A local journalist, who covered Kashmir during the 90s, remembers when a group of militants from JKLF used to meet journalists every now and then inside the hotel premises. We used to get the message from JKLF that they will meet us in Ahdoos. We used to get our stories and they got their message across. It was as simple as that. Both sides were happy, a journalist said, wishing anonymity. This, though, didnt mean that the hotel owners had any part in this. It (the hotel) was open for all. Anybody would and could come in. Those were the troubled times, the journalist said. Ahdoos was also the spot where politicians and separatists held press briefings. It still is. In 1996, when Al-Barqs chief Bilal Lodhi, Hizbul divisional commander Imran Rahi, Muslim Mujahideens divisional commander Ghulam Moinuddin and Shabir Shah came out for a peace talk with New Delhi a step that took wings out of militancy back then the chosen place of the press briefing was Ahdoos. The event also found a mention in former special director of the Intelligence Bureau and former chief of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) AS Dulats book Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years. Since then, the hotel has witnessed numerous press briefings from leaders who represent both sides of the political spectrum. Such is the importance of the hotel in the Kashmir narrative that Arundhati Roys book The Ministry of Utmost Happiness has a journalist character stationed at Ahdoos, clearly drawing parallels from history. The hotels importance was echoed by former J&K chief minister, Omar Abdullah. In a recent tweet, Omar said, Ahdoos Srinagar completes 100 years next month. If its walls could talk the stories it would be able to tell (sic). But for those, who have stayed at Ahdoos, enjoyed its famous hospitality, the amazing cuisine and the generous staff, the place has much more to it than just being a hotel. Its a witness to war, political scheming and stories that changed the course of history. Among all the hotel's journalists have stayed in Kashmir, Ahdoos finds a special mention in reporter diaries and autobiographies. Perhaps, thats why, Suhasini Haider, the current Diplomatic Editor for The Hindu, in one of her pieces written for the News18, said, Ahdoos built a legendary reputation, for the best food in town, but also for the people you would meet there from intelligence officials to local militants. Even as Ahdoos enjoys rave reputation, for many, the hotel continues to be an important part of their lives. It was the Hotel California. You could check out, but never leave, a New Delhi-based journalist, who has been a frequent visitor to the hotel since the 90s, quipped. Jammu: A former revenue official, wanted by the police in connection with the rape and killing of a minor girl, Asifa, in Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir, on Tuesday surrendered before the crime branch in Jammu. Sanji Ram (60), believed to be the mastermind behind the rape and killing of the 8-year-old Bakharwal girl in January, surrendered after his son was arrested from Uttar Pradesh on Monday. The minor's body was recovered from Rasana forest in Kathua on January 17, a week after she went missing while grazing horses in the area. The incident sparked widespread protest in the state. Asifa's case had sparked tensions between coalition partners PDP and BJP after two BJP ministers joined a rally of Hindu Ekta Manch, a right-wing body that was trying to pressure government to transfer the case to CBI. The Manch had been protesting arrest of the murder accused and suggested Crime Branch sleuths were terrorising nationalist people. Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti rejected the demand of BJP for a CBI investigation into the case saying 95 per cent of the probe has been completed. The case had even threatened to polarise the state when Manch activists alleged in their rallies that the rape was used to harass the majority community in Kathua. We have arrested eight persons in custody and all of them are accused, a police officer said, adding "we will be building on the investigations to make it a watertight case. Expect us to file challan in the court of law shortly." He said the arrested include two cops for destroying evidence, two Special Police Officers, a 19-year-old and his friend, who kidnapped and raped the girl, and Sanji Ram and his son. Police sources said Sanji Ram was the one who set up the Manch to dump up support for the accused. Before Sanji Ram's surrender, police had rushed a team to Meerut to arrest his son Vishal. According to the police, Sanji Ram and others had plotted to kidnap the minor girl to scare away Gujjars and the Bakerwal community from the area. They even prevented the burial of Asifa in the village to discourage them from settling there. Among those arrested is Shubham, who was earlier believed to be a juvenile. He was charged with raping the girl. But tests have now revealed that Shubham was a major and testimonials prepared by board of doctors and accessed by News 18 confirm he is 19 years old. Bengaluru: The Siddaramaiah govermments decision to accord a separate religion tag to Lingayats has divided the ruling Congress in Karnataka. A powerful VeerashaivaLingayat leader of the party from central Karnataka and Congress MLA Shamanur Shivashankarappa and his son and state minister SS Mallikarjuna have openly revolted against the decision indicating that they may even quit the party to join BJP. Shamanur Shivashankarappa, who is also the president of All India Veerashaiva Lingayat Mahasabha, the powerful body of the sect, had welcomed the decision of the government on Monday. In a sudden development he did a U-turn the next day. Speaking to media, he said, I had hastily welcomed it on Monday. I have now realised that it was a mistake because the state recommendation sent to the Centre clearly states that whoever follows Basava tatva or philosophy can be considered a religious minority. We are opposing it because the Veerashaiva sect was there even before Basavana, who founded the Lingayat religion in 12th century. We feel that we have been betrayed by the government. After reports of Shamanur Shivashankarappa leaving the party started gaining traction, the leader, denying any such move, said: "Neither me nor my son will join the BJP. These are all rumours." However, state BJP president BS Yeddyurappa dropped a bombshell by saying that a top Congress leader will join the BJP soon. The party insiders are claiming that Shamanur and son will join the BJP after the Rajya Sabha election on Friday. The fatherson belong to Sadara Lingayats, which is a powerful sub-sect among the Lingayats. Their population is concentrated in central Karnataka districts of Davanagere, Chitradurga and Haveri. The Lingayat seers backing the separate religion movement argue that Veerashaivas are not Lingayats because they are a Hindu sect who believe in Vedic system and scriptures. According to top ministers in the Congress government, an earlier recommendation to declare VeerashaivaLingayats as religious minorities was rejected by the Centre on the grounds that Veerashaivas are a part of Hindu religion. Because of that we have sent a cleverly worded recommendation which states that Veerashaivas, who follow Basava tatva or philosophy, can also be considered a religious minority. Shamanur Shivashankarappas adamant and impractical nature will harm the entire community, said a senior Congress leader. A few days ago, Shamanur had a secret meeting with Yeddyurappa at Tumkur near Bengaluru. But both had denied the rumours that Shamanur was joining the saffron party. Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh assembly was adjourned sine die following protests over a womans suicide who claimed to be the daughter-in-law of a state minister. Opposition Congress has been calling for a debate while the ruling BJP continued to deny their charges. A belligerent Congress on Wednesday vowed to take the fight to the streets. Upset over denial of debate, the Congress submitted a no-confidence motion against speaker Dr Sitasaran Sharma. But amid the din, the House failed to even debate the acceptability of the motion, let alone accepting it. Meanwhile, despite the political upheaval, there has been no FIR was in the case till Wednesday as the Raisen police has only recorded statements of the deceaseds family. Leader of Opposition Ajay Singh repeatedly alleged that while CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan identifies himself as a champion of womens rights, he did not bother appearing in the House to discuss this serious case. As soon as the House met on Wednesday, Congress MLAs started pressing for a debate on deceased Preeti Raghuwanshi but Speaker Dr Sitasaran Sharma did not allow any discussion and a commotion followed in the House. Over the next few hours, the House was adjourned four times. Both Congress and BJP MLAs engaged in heated exchanges every time the House proceedings resumed. Time and again Congress legislators rushed to the well raising slogans against the BJP government and accused it of making false promises on safety and empowerment of women. Public Relations Minister Dr Narottam Mishra flayed the Congress and alleged breach of privilege claiming that the party distributed copies of the motion to the media. This triggered a fresh spell of verbal dual between the BJP and Congress. As Congress MLAs protested in the well, the Speaker hurriedly read out the pending Budget proposals and bills. As the Speaker sought a nod in the House through voice vote, he pronounced that the proceedings of the House are adjourned sine die. The Budget season that started on February 21, came to a premature close, around a week ahead of the scheduled closure. As I met the girls family on Tuesday, they voiced concern for their own safety and pleaded for justice, LOP Ajay Singh told the media. He said, On my intervention, police agreed to record the familys statement but as the family sat at the police station from 8pm to 11 pm, the Sub Divisional Officer of Police was missing and was seen only at 1.30am. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Dr Narottam Mishra said that the concerned minister has accepted the deceased girl to be his daughter-in-law and a case has been lodged and inquiry into the death is underway. IG (Law and Order), Makrand Deuskar, on being asked whether ministers son would be questioned, the officer said that this would be decided as more facts emerge. Twenty five-year-old Preeti Raghuwanshi had committed suicide on March 17 while her family claimed that she had married PWD Minister Rampal Singhs son. Preeti ended her life as the ministers family planned to marry their son somewhere else, her family has alleged. Muslim feminist figure, Asma Lamrabet, presented her resignation from Moroccos league of religious scholars (Rabita Mohammedia) because of her vanguardist stands in support of gender equality in inheritance, an advocacy that drew to her the criticism of ultra-conservatives in the North African country. I have officially presented my resignation from the center that I headed at the Rabita Mohammedia, said Lamrabet, a 58 hematologist, on her facebook page without explaining the reason behind such a decision. Moroccan media, citing sources close to Lamrabet, said that the resignation comes against the backdrop of her recent interviews in which she outspokenly supported full equality between men and women in inheritance rights. Lamrabet has stirred the wrath of ultraconservatives in the country because she defends equality in inheritance from an Islamic perspective saying that such a principle is part of the ultimate goals of the religion. In late 2015, Moroccos National Human Rights Council (CNDH) issued a report calling for a review of the family code to guarantee equality between men and women in inheritance. In 2004, the North African country adopted a new family code, which was commended by the international community and rights groups as a major stride. Few years later, Morocco endorsed a new constitution guaranteeing gender equality. The current Moroccan inheritance law is based on traditional Islamic jurisprudence, which grants women half of what it gives men in inheritance, while making men financially responsible for women. Mumbai: A man impersonating Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis has been arrested by Thane police trying to dupe a BJP corporator by promising to nominate him to state legislative council in exchange for money. According to police, Thane corporator Manohar Dubre's driver introduced him to 29-year-old woman named Anud Shirgavkar. Anud told Manohar that she was working for Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and she could get him inducted as a member of the Legislative Council. She then asked Manohar to submit his resume and demanded an amount of Rs 10 crore, which, she said, was to be paid to the Chief Minister. Manohar submitted the details with the accused and had several meeting with Anud and another accused identified as Anil Kumar Bhanushali. In one such meeting, arranged at a hotel in Thane, Anud told Manohar that he was approved by the Chief Minister and placed a demand for Rs 25 lakh to initiate the process. Anuda also promised Manohar to arrange a phone conversation with the Chief Minister through a conference call. Accordingly, on March 19, Manohar received a call from Anuda, who told him that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was on the conference call. The person who identified himself as Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was 24-year-old Abdul Fayaz Ansari, the third accused in the case. Abdul, an automobile mechanic in Pune, impersonated Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. He asked Manohar to follow the instructions of Anuda and make the payment. Suspecting foul play, Manohar informed the Thane Crime Branch. Acting on the complaint, police laid a trap to nab the accused. Speaking to News18, ACP Mukund Hatote, Thane Crime Branch, said: "On March 20, Manohar went to Tulsi Hotel in Thane with Rs 25 lakh to meet Anud. She was caught accepting the money. Four fake identity cards of the National Investigation Agency were also recovered from her, along with a copy of Manohar's biodata, which had the forged signature of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis." Second accused Anil Kumar was arrested from Ghansoli in Navi Mumbai. Third accused Abdul Fayaz Ansari, who mimicked the CM's voice was arrested from Pune. A fake certificate of the central vigilance commission was recovered from Anil Kumar. The three accused arrested have been booked for cheating and forgery. Police are also investigating the forged documents that have been recovered from the accused. New Delhi: Be it the brutal Rajsamand killing or the Mewat lynching episode, Rajasthan has seen a series of attacks on minorities in the past year, yet, TV Mohandas Pai, an eminent member of the state governments digital council, believes these are just criminal acts. Mohandas Pai, IT veteran and a member of Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje's digital advisory council told News18 that most of these incidents were nothing but an "orchestrated campaign bereft of data". "How many lynching incident happened in Rajasthan? Maybe 5, 10 or 15. Look at the population, which is seven crores. India is in the midst of an ideological fight, a fight between Left and the Right. Since the Left is out of power, they claim that something is wrong with this government," said the former Infosys director. The latest lynching incident in Rajasthan was that of a 25-year-old Muslim migrant worker, a native of Kanpur, who was allegedly lynched by a mob on February 3 on suspicion of being a child lifter. In February, when Mohammad Faisal Siddique was taking his friend Aslam Ansaris two-year-old daughter to the market to buy her chocolates, some people suspected that he had kidnapped the child. The mob of about 50 people tied up Siddique to an electric pole and thrashed him mercilessly, leading to his death. Days later, a Dalit boy was beaten to death for playing Holi in Alwar. Pai told News18 on Wednesday that such incidents do not prove that these are part of a "larger scheme of things". He observed that this was only a problem due to shortage in the states police force needed to handle the law and order situation. "Rajasthan is just a victim. This is an orchestrated propaganda bereft of data. Reports say that some people lynched someone when the truth was he had died of a heart attack. The Bengali man who was burnt was a criminal act. How can it be a part of anything bigger," said Pai who also stated that "cow vigilantism is part of hafta racket that extorts money and nothing else". Pai, who was in Jaipur to address the Rajasthan IT Day event along with Chief Minister Raje said that the state will reap benefits out of the digital push in the upcoming elections. "If Rajasthan government shows that crores of people are benefitting from this digital revolution, they have a winning formula in place for the next Assembly elections," said Pai who also believes that "West Bengal, UP, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh are way behind in IT as the political leadership does not understand the impact of technology". The Vasundhara Raje-led BJP government on Wednesday inaugurated the Abhay Kaman Centre for Jodhpur, Bikaner and Bharatpur. The surveillance system with a dedicated control room has been designed to ensure safety of residents. "Now you know you are safe because big daddy is watching over you," said Raje while inaugurating the schemes. Celebrated photographer and film producer Atul Kasbekar says the concept of supermodel has disappeared from India, and he wants to revive it. "I have watched through my career how the concept of supermodel essentially has disappeared from our country. And there is a whole bunch of different factors which has resulted in killing the concept," Kasbekar told IANS. He is part of the Colors Infinity show "Top Model India". "If I can be a part of the process to revive it to whatever extent, then I will be a part of it. People like Sheetal Mallar and Mehr Jessia are supermodels in their own right. Even Arjun Rampal, before him Rahul Dev and Marc Robinson -- they were huge stars. "In every advanced country that has a visual communication and advertising, you will find digital stars, model stars. We had that and we managed to kill it." But what killed the concept? "One of the main out of the bunch of factors is there are foreign models who are inherently a bit gypsies and nomadic in attitude. "They travel here, they travel to Bangkok, Dubai, Cape Town and essentially they are transitioning through unless something big happens to them. They have no interest in hanging around in the country. "They get to sign at any kind of rate, more importantly, there is little paper work..." "Top Model India" sees male and female contestants up against each other. And Kasbekar says along with a good face, he is looking for the 'x factor' in the contestant. You may be at an increased risk of diabetes if you are not taking care of your dental health, warns a new study which suggests that dental examination may provide a way to identify the risk for developing the disease. "We found a progressive positive relationship between worsening glucose tolerance and the number of missing teeth," said lead author Raynald Samoa from the City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, California. For the study, presented at the ENDO 2018: The Endocrine Society's 100th Annual Meeting and Expo, researchers reviewed the records of 9,670 adults with 20 years of age and above who were examined by dentists during the 2009-2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. They analysed their reported body mass index (BMI) and glucose tolerance states by fasting plasma glucose, two-hour post-challenge plasma glucose, haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), established diabetes and whether the condition was treated with oral agents or insulin. The researchers recorded the numbers of missing teeth due to caries, or cavities, and periodontal disease for individual patients. They also determined the relationship between glucose tolerance and dental condition by considering age, gender, racial and ethnic group, family history of diabetes, smoking status, alcohol consumption, education and poverty index. The researchers found a progressive increase in the number of patients with missing teeth as glucose tolerance declined, from 45.57 percent in the group with normal glucose tolerance (NGT) to 67.61 percent in the group with abnormal glucose tolerance (AGT), to 82.87 percent in the group with diabetes mellitus (DM). The differences in the average number of missing teeth among the three glucose tolerance groups were significant: 2.26 in the NGT group, 4.41 in the AGT group and 6.80 in those with DM, the researchers noted. There used to be a time when Indian cinema, certainly Bollywood, borrowed freely from Hollywood. Why even the name, Bollywood, is a copy from Hollywood. And the other Woods in India Kollywood, Tollywood, etc found their inspiration from Bollywood, the title, the themes and even the tales. One of the best examples of such copy was Frank Capra's 1934 Hollywood blockbuster, It Happened One Night, with Clarke Gable and Claudette Colbert, who won the Academy Award for Best Actress. The film won other Oscars, for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Gable) and Best Screenplay. Almost six decades later in 1991, Mahesh Bhatt made a frame-by-frame copy of Capra's movie, called it Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin, and cast his daughter, Pooja Bhatt, as an heiress who runs away from home and meets a newspaper reporter, played by Aamir Khan. It was an innocent, sweet love story with some amazingly melodious music by Nadeem-Shravan. The director never admitted that it was an exact copy, and in those days, most Indians would not have seen Capra's work. Down the ages, many Indian films were copied from or inspired by Hollywood or European or South-east Asian pictures often without offering any credit. Now, I read a piece in The Hollywood Reporter, which said that the veteran British director and producer, Ridley Scott, was planning to make Amman Mission a $-35-million military drama on the evacuation of Chinese nationals from Kuwait, when it was invaded by Saddam Hussain's Iraq in 1990. This reminded me of Raja Krishnan Menon's 2016 Airlift. The Scott project, to be developed by Hong Kong-based Media Quiz, will be shot in Kuwait and China's Ningxia and Xinjiang, and will narrate the nail-biting story of how 4885 Chinese men, women and children were evacuated from Kuwait in 48 hours. Actually, the operation involving the Chinese is not as well known in India as the evacuation of Indians from Kuwait also in 1990 during the Iraqi offensive. Airlift was all about the evacuation of Indians. The movie had Akshay Kumar essaying a heroic businessman who rescued thousands of Indians stranded in Kuwait. Airlift had all the unmistakable masala of Bollywood a dashing and debonair Kumar with Nimrat Kaur as his wife, and he played the hero to the minutest perfection. There were pulse-pounding scenes in the film, one of which showed us how Kumar's Ranjit Katyal nearly got shot by an Iraqi soldier, but was saved in the nick of time by the intervention of a busload of Indians, who were being escorted out of Kuwait by him. The other famous rescue mission made into a movie, Take Off, by Mahesh Narayanan, was all about some nurses held captive in the Iraqi city of Tikrit by ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) in 2014. Here it was a nurse, Sameera portrayed with amazing credibility by Parvathy Menon who led her colleagues to freedom with the help of a Government officer, essayed by Fahadh Faasil, another outstanding performance. Take Off was shorn of heroics, and was a down-to-earth account of another great escape. I am sure Scott's Amman Mission would run closer to Menon's Airlift, the British helmer being known for dramatic stories like Blade Runner, Gladiator, Robin Hood, Black Hawk Down and Thelma and Louise. Last year, he produced Murder on the Orient Express. My favourite in Scott's oeuvre has remained Thelma and Louise with Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon, two friends who take a road trip with unforeseen consequences. The final frame showed their car, chased by the cops, plunging into a deep gorge, a shot I have seen in other films as well. In the end, I am not suggesting that Scott would have been inspired by Airlift, but Kumar and Krishnan Menon might be happy that they were the first to come up with a movie on the Kuwait evacuation. Yes, yes, the stranded Indians, and now Scott would rescue the Chinese. (Gautaman Bhaskaran is an author, commentator and movie critic, and may be e-mailed at gautamanb@hotmail.com ) Lucknow: A well-attended dinner hosted by Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday night at a five-star hotel in Lucknow have brightened the Rajya Sabha hopes of his new tag team partner - Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati. Although she herself was not present, the presence of independent MLA from Kundla, Raghuraj Pratap Singh, or Raja Bhaiyya as he is more popularly known, at the dinner would have put a smile on her face. With just two days left before Uttar Pradesh MLAs vote to send 10 candidates to the Upper House, the BSP faces a close contest and Singhs vote could swing the battle its way. The Kundla MLA spent most of the evening talking to Jaya Bachchan, the SP candidate for the RS polls. Mayawatis party has 19 MLAs and to send a candidate to the Rajya Sabha, a party needs 37 MLA votes. She is banking on support from the SP, which has 47 MLAs, so it will have 10 to spare. Ajit Singh's party has offered to back her with its one vote to make up for the loss of Naresh Agrawals son Nitin Agrawal. She has also been promised by the Congress that its seven MLAs would vote for the BSP candidate, taking the tally to 36. So, Singhs vote could seal the deal for her, if there is no cross voting. SP MLC Sunil Singh Sajan said there was no chance of any cross voting. This is a Rajya Sabha election, you cannot hide and vote. So cross voting should not be expected. Those who are with us are with us and we are confident of our people. Shivpal Yadav Ji and Raja Bhaiyya both of them are with us, he said. Senior SP leader and Akhileshs uncle Shivpal Yadav was also present at the dinner. It was their first joint public appearance in over a year. Shivpal, who had left for Saifai early on Wednesday morning and skipped a key strategy meeting called by Akhilesh, drove back to Lucknow for the dinner. They sat next to each other most of the time and Shivpal said he was confident that both SP and BSPs candidates - Jaya Bachchan and Bhim Rao Ambedkar would win the Rajya Sabha elections. SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, however, could not attend the dinner due to health issues, but is expected to attend another dinner that will be thrown by Samajwadi Party MLCs at the same venue on Thursday. Samajwadi Party MLA Nitin Agrawal also did not attend the dinner. He had also skipped the meeting called by Akhilesh earlier in the day, and instead attended a strategy meeting convened by Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath. Nitin, an MLA from Hardoi constituency, is the son of former SP leader Naresh Agrawal, who joined the BJP after being denied a ticket to the Upper House by Akhilesh Yadav. At the time of his joining, Naresh Agrawal had said that his son would vote for the BJP candidate in the RS polls. The elections will be held on Friday. With 311 MLAs in the UP Assembly, the BJP is assured of eight out of 10 seats but it has fielded a ninth candidate too. The BJP will have at least 28 surplus votes after it secures the eight seats and it is hoping to scramble more to make an upset. New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress traded charges on Wednesday over links with British firm Cambridge Analytica, which is in the eye of the storm over misuse of Facebook profiles for political campaigns. A report in Britain's Channel-4 had alleged that CA used data mined from Facebook without user consent in the voter research it conducted to influence 2016 US elections campaign for Donald Trump. Quoting channel-4 report, Information Technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad alleged that Congress had liased with the UK firm for election strategy, hinting that a similar attempt could have been made in India too. He posed three questions to the party on whether it had employed the company at a press conference in Delhi. Will the Congress party depend on data manipulation and theft to woo voters? Does the Congress endorse the methods used by Cambridge Analytica, namely sex, sleaze and fake news? What is Cambridge Analyticas role in Rahul Gandhis social media profile? he asked in a press conference at Parliament house in Delhi. A screenshot of OBI's website proclaiming that the BJP, Congress and JD(U) were all its clients. OBI is a part of the joint venture of SCL India. SCL is the parent company of Cambridge Analytica. In a press statement BJP citing unnamed media reports claimed now sacked Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix had met several opposition leaders to design electoral strategy for the UPA in the next Lok Sabha elections. The Congress rubbished the charges and instead pointed fingers at the BJP for employing the services of the data analytics firm. Congress IT cell head Divya Spandana a.k.a Ramya said, Congress has never and is not employing Cambridge Analytica. The company only works with right-wing parties, not liberals. Their website itself says they work with BJP." The partys communication in charge, Randeep Surjewala, said the BJPs allegations were another addition to the list of fake news produced by the party. It appears fake statements, fake press conferences and fake agendas have become an everyday character of BJP and its 'lawless' Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, he said at a press conference. He said that Cambridge Analytica website shows that in 2010 its services were used by BJP-JD(U). Surjewala also alleged that BJP had liased with Ovleno Business Intelligence, a firm that is a part of the joint venture of SCL (Strategic Communications Laboratories) India. SCL is the Britain-based parent company of Cambridge Analytica. The website of OBI proclaims that it works on political campaign management. It lists as its clients the BJP, the Congress, the JD (U), ICICI Bank and Airtel. On the page are also photos of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Delhi Chief Arvind Kejriwal, but it does not list the Aam Aadmi Party as one of its clients. Ovleno Business Intelligence (OBI) is being run by BJP ally's MP's son. OBI company's services were also used by Rajnath Singh in 2009, Surjewala added. New Delhi: Union minister and BJP leader Giriraj Singh on Wednesday rejected Nitish Kumars "avoid making divisive statements" advice by saying he wont tolerate atrocities against the Hindus. Talking to News18 in Delhi, Giriraj reiterated that Ramchandra Yadav was beheaded in Bihars Darbhanga district because his son Teju Yadav had named an intersection in Vadwa village as Narendra Modi Chowk". Nitish Kumar lashed out at the BJP leader for making such false assertions and said the incident was fallout of a land dispute. Senior Bihar police officers also denied any link between the attack on the family and naming of Narendra Modi Chowk. Giriraj Singh, along with state BJP president Nityanand Rai, had visited the village and accused the police of concealing facts from the state government. Lending support to Nitishs statement was deputy chief minister and senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi who tweeted that the beheading incident was related to an old land dispute. During the Araria bypoll, Giriraj claimed that the victory of RJD's Sarfaraz Alam would make the place a hub of terrorism, which would be a danger to not only Bihar but also the country. Soon after Alam's victory, a video had gone viral on social media where people were seen shouting slogans which were pro-Pakistan. A sou-motu FIR was lodged by the SHO of Araria Dipankar Shri Gyan after taking cognisance of the matter. Soon after the results, Giriraj claimed that Araria will soon became a "hub of terror". RJD has given a call to not allow Giriraj Singh into the state but the minister has said he will visit the state on March 24. Let them do whatever they can but no one can stop me from going to my motherland. I dont require visa for that, said Giriraj. Singh, seen as a Hindutva hardliner within the BJP, has ignited controversies with his fiery comments in the past as well. Bengaluru: In a startling statement on Wednesday, Karnatakas Water Resources Minister MB Patil has said he expects to be raided by the Income Tax department ahead of the Assembly polls. Anybody who challenges the stance of the BJP, performs thru development,& counters the BJP strongly, becomes a target driven by vengeance from institutions under the Big-Brother/ Saheb government (sic), he said on social media. Patil has also been at the forefront of the Lingayat separate religion agitation the last few months. This comes a day after senior Congress leaders from Karnataka submitted a petition to the Election Commission, seeking help to counter the misuse of the Income Tax and other Central government agencies against leaders opposing BJP. The petition, signed by top leaders, including working president Dinesh Gundu Rao, Ministers and MLCs. The raids follow a pattern reinforcing the fact that the BJP government is blatantly and actively misusing Union Government machinery ... (especially) in States that are close to elections, the petition stated. They alleged that the I-T department is selectively leaking out information to the media so that party functionaries are targeted. The petition wanted the EC to direct officials of enforcement agencies like the I-T department, ED and CBI to not act illegally at the behest of the Centre and even sought the transfer of the Director General of Income Tax (Investigations) in Karnataka. New Delhi: Amid reports of China opening up a new route to reach south Doklam, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday asked whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi would react to the development through 'hugplomacy', by blaming the defence minister or crying in public. "In Doklam, it's China season again. How will Modi Ji react this time? 1. Hugplomacy. 2. Blame RM. 3. Cry in public. 4. All of the above," tweeted Gandhi. In Doklam, its China season again. How will Modi Ji react this time?https://t.co/lUcy9QetfR Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) March 21, 2018 The Congress chief was referring to PM Modi's penchant for hugging world leaders, which the Congress ridicules and calls "hugplomacy". He also tagged a news report with the tweet that claimed China was quietly and cleverly finding a new route to South Doklam, seven months after India stopped Chinese construction activities in the area lying between Tibet's Chumbi Valley to the north, Bhutan's Ha Valley to the east and the Indian state of Sikkim to the west. Gandhi and his party have been attacking the prime minister and his government over the Doklam issue due to the Chinese build-up there. According to a media report, China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops are trying to outflank the Indian Doklam military outpost by constructing a new 1.3-km long road and communication trenches around 4-km away from the spot. This alternative road could allow China access to the Jampheri Ridge in south Doklam, as the PLA had earlier wanted, before the 73-day troop stand-off last year. Morocco, which rejoined the African Union last year, signed this Wednesday the agreement launching the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The signing ceremony took place at the 10th Extraordinary Summit of the African Union on AfCFTA convened in Kigali, Rwanda. The AfCFTA was inked by Head of Moroccan Government Saad Eddine El Othmani, who leads the Moroccan delegation to the Kigali extraordinary summit. Moroccos signing of this agreement reflects the Kingdoms commitment to Africa and its full adherence to the continents development and integration process, El Othmani said in a statement to the press in Kigali, describing the agreement signing as a historic event that marks a major step in the process of African integration. He noted that the signing is only the beginning of a process that will be continued by discussions to ensure the entry into force of the accord before the end of the year. The goal of the AfCFTA is to establish a shared market for goods and services, he said, noting that this goal is in line with the vision of King Mohammed VI and with Moroccos policy for Africas economic emergence, stability and prosperity. The AfCFTA will make the continent the largest free trade area created since the formation of the World Trade Organization. According to experts, this is a historic pact, which represents a major advance for African integration and unity. The pact will enhance Africas position in global trade, which means new opportunities for African companies to compete and cooperate across borders and build continental reach. However, the success of the AfCFTA will depend on closer collaboration between policy makers and the private sector. The AfCFTA is a flagship project of Agenda 2063, the African Unions long-term vision for an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa. The Free Trade Area has the potential to transform the fortunes of millions of Africans by boosting trading ties between Africas nations. It will help create jobs for young Africans who today struggle and are fleeing the continent. CFTA will also help enhance peace, security and prosperity. Currently Africa trades far less with itself than it does with the rest of the world. Intra-African trade stands at about 16 pc, compared with 19 pc intra-regional trade in Latin America, 51 pc in Asia, 54 pc in North America and 70 pc in Europe. The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa estimates that the AfCFTA has the potential to boost intra-Africa trade by 53 pc by eliminating import duties and lowering tariff barriers. It could create an African market of over 1.2 billion people with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $2.5 trillion. Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Raj Babbar has resigned from his post and Union minister Jitin Prasada is expected to replace him. Babbars resignation comes days after Congress chief Rahul Gandhi said during the party plenary about the need to make way for younger leaders. On Tuesday, Goa Congress President Shantaram Naik had resigned saying that he was "inspired" by Rahul Gandhi's speech at the party plenary about making way for younger leaders. Sources said Babbars resignation has not been accepted by the party yet. Earlier, there were reports that Goa Congress chief Bharatsinh Solanki is likely to be replaced soon by the party high command. Solanki, however, has denied that he has resigned. Top sources in the party have confirmed that he met the Congress president on Monday and offered to quit citing personal reasons. While speaking to media, Babbar did not say anything about his resignation. He said, I was sent here with a special task. I have worked as much as I could have done. My performance must have been good and bad at times. I do not want to comment anymore let the party leadership decide my performance. After attending the plenary session in New Delhi, Babbar said, I feel for the upcoming 2019 Lok Sabha elections everybodys role should change accordingly. However, who will play what role, will be decided by the party leadership. Around 10pm, he took to Twitter to pay tribute to poet Kedarnath Singh who passed away on Monday. In the end friends, I would like to say that in the end end is just a phrase, which is often blown away by the powerful words. Such powerful lines of Kedarnath Singh will never send us far away from him. My tributes to the great writer, he tweeted. According to Congress sources, the party will look for a Brahmin face to replace Babbar. Some of the names the rounds are former Union minister Jitin Prasada, former Congress MP Rajesh Mishra and former Congress MLA Laliteshpati Tripathi. However, sources also claim that Prasada being close to Congress President is the front-runner. Lucknow: Samajwadi Party MLA Nitin Agrawal missed a meeting called by Akhilesh Yadav and instead attended one convened by Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath to discuss strategy for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls. Nitin, an MLA from Hardoi constituency, is the son of former SP leader Naresh Agrawal, who joined the BJP after being denied a ticket to the Upper House by Akhilesh Yadav. At the time of his joining, Naresh Agrawal had said that his son would vote for the BJP candidate in the RS polls. The elections will be held on Friday. The BJP is assured of eight out of 10 seats but it has fielded a ninth candidate. To send a candidate to the Rajya Sabha, a party needs 37 MLA votes. The BJP will have at least 28 surplus votes after it secures the eight seats. According to sources, CM Yogi Adityanath is himself spearheading the election strategy. The chief BJP ally Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party, whose four votes will be crucial in the election, was also present in the meeting after the saffron party was successful in mollifying it. Om Prakash Rajbhar had skipped the one-year bash for Yogi government, saying there was nothing to celebrate. The BJP said it is confident of giving a fight for the ninth seat. The SP and the BSP also assured that they would win one each of the remaining two seats. The SP has fielded Jaya Bachchan and the BSP Bhimrao Ambedkar. We know how to contest polls. Our candidate is winning and we are also going to ensure victory of the other (BSP) candidate, senior SP leader and MLA Parasnath Yadav told reporters. SP has 47 MLAs in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, of whom Nitin Agarwal is expected to vote for the BJP. Apart from Nitin Agrawal, another SP MLA missing from Wednesdays meeting was Shivpal Yadav. Sources close to Shivpal Yadav said he was in Etawah. Senior party leader Azam Khan, his son Abdullah Azam, Hariom (lodged in jail) were also absent from the meeting. Party leaders, however, asserted that they were firmly within the SP fold and expressed confidence that their candidates would emerge victorious in the Rajya Sabha polls. Facebook faces substantial business risks from new European Union privacy rules set to take effect in May, a looming reality that came into stark relief over the weekend with revelations that a controversial political consulting firm had improperly obtained personal data on 50 million Facebook users. Privacy experts said the disclosure that a researcher had sold Facebook data collected via a personality quiz to the consulting firm Cambridge Analytica is a prime example of the kinds of practices that the new General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, is supposed to prevent or punish. The danger faced by Facebook going forward is two-fold: Complying with the rules means letting European users opt out of the highly targeted online ads that have made Facebook a money machine. Violating GDPR mandates could subject the California company to fines of up to 4 percent of annual revenues. Had the Cambridge Analytica incident happened after GDPR becomes law on May 25, it "would have cost Facebook 4 percent of their global revenue", said Austrian privacy campaigner and Facebook critic Max Schrems. Because a UK company was involved and because at least some of the people whose data was misused were almost certainly European, GDPR would have applied. Shares in Facebook fell on Monday by 7 percent, their biggest drop since 2014, wiping nearly $40 billion off the value of the firm founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg. Schrems first raised concerns in 2011 about how easy it would be for third-party apps to harvest data from the unwitting friends of Facebook users. Facebook says it has tightened its controls on such practices since it discovered the alleged abuses by Cambridge Analytica in 2015. Schrems has founded a non-profit, called None Of Your Business (NOYB), that is hiring lawyers and exploring avenues for "strategic litigation" over GDPR privacy violations. According to whistleblower Christopher Wylie, who formerly worked with Cambridge Analytica, the consulting firm used the data to help then-U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump to predict and influence choices at the ballot box. The fact of the matter is that Facebook lost control of the data and wasn't adequately monitoring what third-parties were doing," said Scott Vernick, a partner and an expert in privacy and data security at the Philadelphia law firm Fox Rothschild. Vernick said the maximum GDPR fine could come into play in an incident like this because of the number of users affected and what appears to have been inadequate monitoring of third-party data practices. Facebook said it changed its policies in 2014 to "to give much less data, especially about friends," Facebook Vice President Andrew Bosworth said in a Facebook post on Monday. "We conduct a robust review to identify potential policy violations and to assess whether the app has a legitimate use for the data," the company said on Monday. "We actually reject a significant number of apps through this process. Compliance with GDPR rules could cost Facebook a significant amount of money. Deutsche Bank analysts in January estimated that Facebooks overall revenue could be lowered by 4 percent in a scenario in which 30 percent of EU users opt out of targeted ads, reducing the effectiveness and likely price of ads shown by 50 percent. The EU represents 24 percent of Facebook's ad revenue, so multiplying those figures, the bank said the regulations could have a 4 percent impact on overall Facebook revenue. "If this regulatory approach spreads to other countries or if GDPR ever becomes more onerous over the medium or long term, it would pose more risk," Deutsche Bank warned. The firestorm over Cambridge Analytica has prompted a furious response from lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic, raising the prospect of just such an expansion of privacy protections. Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser reiterated his 'sell' rating on Facebook after the weekend reports. Wieser expressed concerns that the company's regulatory risks would intensify and that its sophisticated use of data in advertising was in jeopardy. A December 2017 survey found that only 21 percent of European consumers know what GDPR is. But after the regulation was explained, 82 percent of respondents said they plan to exercise their new rights, according to the survey of 7,000 Europeans conducted by Cambridge, Mass.-based Pegasystems Inc , which makes sales and marketing software. PageFair, an Irish startup that helps website deliver non-targeted ads and avoid ad-blocking, estimates that only 3 percent of European social media users will opt-in to targeted ads, a potentially "devastating" blow for Facebook and other platforms, says Johnny Ryan, PageFair's head of ecosystem. GIVING CONSUMERS CONTROL The quandary for Facebook is readily apparent from a video it began showing customers in February: it teaches people how to delete their accounts. GDPR gives users the right to access their data, delete it or transfer it to competing companies. Social networks will also need to regain Europeans' consent every time they want to use their data in new ways, including for targeted advertising. Lawmakers had social networks in mind when drafting GDPR, said Helen Dixon, the data protection commissioner of Ireland, which is the lead GDPR regulator for numerous tech companies including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. "There was very big consideration of these newer types of platforms," she told Reuters. Tough European rules stand in sharp contrast to the lack of privacy regulation in the United States and many other countries, raising the prospect that Facebook will begin to look much different from one country to the next. For example, the social media giant in 2017 released new artificial intelligence features that detect when a user is at risk of suicide or when someone else uploads a picture of their face. The company did not make those features available in Europe. Facebook did not specify a reason. But heightened scrutiny in Europe over such practices with GDPR looming may have been a factor. Another challenge for social networks are GDPR provisions mandating how companies must obtain permissions. The regulation demands that requests for consent be presented "in an intelligible and easily accessible form, using clear and plain language." In other words, the days of extensive "terms of service" agreements written in small text will no longer pass muster in Europe, numerous data privacy lawyers told Reuters. In practice, social network users may find themselves seeing more "permissions screens" and being asked to check boxes every time a social network rolls out a new feature. That could depress usage, Facebook Chief Financial Officer David Wehner said at an investor conference last month. "Whenever you walk people through permission screens, there's some potential that people decide they're not going to use the product," Wehner said. "We don't think it will be big, but there could be some implication there." Watch: Google Pixel 2 Review | Should You Buy it Now For Rs 42,000? US electric car company Tesla said on Tuesday that Chief Executive Elon Musk, who was visiting Israel, did not discuss a collaboration with artificial intelligence firm Cortica. "The reports that Musk was in Israel to discuss a collaboration between Tesla and Cortica are completely false, he was in Israel, but not to meet or have discussions with Cortica," said a Tesla spokesman based in Palo Alto, Ca. Also Read: Facebook Security Chief Likely to Leave Amid Alleged Data Breach: Report Tel Aviv-based Cortica says its technology enables self-driving cars to identify moving parts in its environment and make informed decisions, even predicting changes likely to occur in its surroundings. The Globes financial news website said the discussions with Cortica could lead to an investment or even an acquisition. Officials at Cortica could not be reached for comment. Also Read: Google Launches News Initiative to Combat Fake News Cortica has raised nearly $70 million since it was founded in 2007. Investors include Hong Kong-based Horizons Ventures and Russia's Mail.ru Group, according to Start-Up National Central. Tesla previously collaborated with Israeli company Mobileye but the companies parted ways in 2016 after a fatal crash involving a Tesla Model S using Autopilot, a semi-automated system designed to assist with driving but not replace the driver. Intel acquired Mobileye last year for $15.3 billion. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting on Tuesday he had met Musk and that they discussed the potential of solar energy generation in the Negev desert. Musk's visit to Israel was highlighted by several websites, including Globes, after he posted a video of himself on Instagram at a bar in Jerusalem. Watch: Google Pixel 2 Review | Should You Buy it Now For Rs 42,000? Aiming to create more awareness and bridge the demand-supply gap for blood units in India, Twitter India on Tuesday launched a new social initiative called #BloodMatters. According to a report by the World Health Organisation, only nine million blood units are available annually in India, against a demand of 12 million units. Also Read: Vodafone Launches Online Career Guidance Program to Help 5 Million Indians find work Blood Donors India (@BloodDonorsIN), a voluntary blood donation helpline on Twitter, is the first partner for the Twitter initiative. Though this initiative, Twitter said it seeks to work with more blood donation helplines like @BloodDonorsIN, blood banks, and health institutions across the country to connect and reach a larger audience. "The platform aims to scale up the volume of blood donation conversation in India, the number of donors, and work with partners that can ensure safe, screened blood can reach those in need in time across India," Twitter India said in a statement. With this initiative, people can request for blood donation simply with a tweet to @BloodDonorsIN with their location hashtag, blood type, mobile contact and Twitter handle. Also Read: Privacy Issues Emerge as Major Business Risk For Facebook People interested to help can follow @BloodDonorsIN and respond or retweet requests for help. Responding to the initiative in a tweet, Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda said: "I am happy to see Twitter take up this cause to strengthen the overall health and well-being of the country with the #BloodMatters initiative. This will play a powerful role in mobilising resources and strengthening the blood donation drive in India." With the new initiative, launched ahead of its 12th birth anniversary on Wednesday, Twitter is expanding the reach of the @BloodDonorsIN helpline through Twitter Lite, which provides more data-friendly access to real-time information exchange on blood donations across India. Twitter will be supporting the implementation of an automated response solution to scale the operations of @BloodDonorsIN, currently run by a group of volunteers. Twitter said it will also amplify the real-time communication efforts of the handle with verification, promotion on Twitter, and use Twitter Lite to connect the helpline with people across the entire country, from the metros to rural India. "Giving back has been a priority for Twitter since its inception and we believe the open exchange of information can be a compelling force for good in the world. #BloodMatters is a step in that direction," Mahima Kaul, Head Public Policy, Twitter India, said in a statement. "We are humbled to kickstart the initiative with @BloodDonorsIN, a handle that symbolises our mission of positively impacting the world by harnessing the real-time power of Twitter and hope to make a larger impact by extending its reach through Twitter Lite," Kaul added. Watch: Google Pixel 2 Review | Should You Buy it Now For Rs 42,000? Bangkok: Asia is a critical battlefield in the global fight to rein in air pollution, registering about 5 million premature deaths each year, delegates at a United Nations conference said on Wednesday, as urged tougher enforcement of curbs. The World Health Organization (WHO) calls air pollution the greatest environmental risk to human health. About 90 percent of related deaths take place in low- and middle-income countries, most of them in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. "There is a sense that if you're developing economically it doesn't mean that you have to live in a city where you can't breathe the air," Dechen Tsering, the Asia-Pacific director of the U.N. Environment programme, said at the two-day event. "There is also a growing sense that there are technologies, there is financing (to help)," said Tsering, adding that the region was a key battleground in the fight. Air pollution grew more than 5 percent between 2008 and 2013 in more than two-thirds of Southeast Asian cities, the WHO said in a report in 2016. Children are "uniquely vulnerable", said Karin Hulshof, East Asia and Pacific director for the U.N. children's agency UNICEF, adding that about 300 million children worldwide live in areas where the air is toxic. "What we are seeing, more and more, in cities like Ulanbataar, is hospitals full of children suffering from diseases related to air pollution," said Hulshof, referring to a public health crisis in Mongolia's capital caused by toxic smog. Emissions limits are simply not being enforced in Asia, however, said Andreas Kock, managing director at Scheuch Asia, which develops and produces environmental cleaning technologies. "Basically, they are not investing because the pressure is not there," said Kock, who called for efforts to spur industries in Asia to adopt pollution-reducing technology. Major cities, such as Bangkok, need to build comprehensive public transport networks and push citizens to use them, Tsering said, as well as environment-friendly vehicles, like bicycles. That is the aim of Mobike, a bike-sharing smartphone application that allows people to find bicycles and unlock them by scanning a QR code. "In Bangkok, we operate in two locations and we hope to expand in a few months," Sam Nathapong, a representative of China-based Mobike, told Reuters. Lagos (Nigeria): Boko Haram Islamists who kidnapped 110 schoolgirls in Dapchi, northeast Nigeria, just over a month ago have returned 76 of the students to the town, the government said on Wednesday. Information Minister Lai Mohammed said the release was "unconditional" and the result of "back-channel efforts" with the help of "some friends of the country", without elaborating. "The 76 are those who have been documented so far," he said, adding that they were released at about 3:00 am (0200 GMT) and that a full head-count was under way. Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari said last week the government had "chosen negotiation" to secure the return of the Dapchi girls rather than use military force. Mohammed said: "For the release to work, the government had a clear understanding that violence and confrontation would not be the way out as it could endanger the lives of the girls, hence a non-violent approach was the preferred option. "Within the period when the girls were being brought back, (an) operational pause was observed in certain areas to ensure free passage and also that lives were not lost." Nigeria's presidency said separately that the girls were in the custody of the country's intelligence agency, the Department of State Services. 'Five died en route' The Dapchi kidnapping on February 19 brought back painful memories of a similar abduction in Chibok in April 2014, when more than 200 girls were taken. Aisha Alhaji Deri, a 16-year-old student who was among those kidnapped in Dapchi, told reporters they were not mistreated during their time in captivity. But she added: "When we were being taken away, five of us died on the way. "They brought us back this morning, dropped us outside the motor park and said we should all go home and not go to the military because they will claim to have rescued us." Parents earlier told AFP the girls were brought back to Dapchi in nine vehicles at about 8:00 am. Some of the students headed to their homes in surrounding villages. The fighters left the girls in the center of town. As terrified residents emerged from their homes, the extremists said this is a warning to you all, resident Baana Musa said. We did it out of pity. And dont ever put your daughters in school again, the extremists told the residents of Dapchi. Boko Haram means Western education is forbidden in the Hausa language. Parents in the remote town said the girls had been taken for medical check-ups after their ordeal and that security was tight in the town Ransom payment? Boko Haram has used kidnapping as a weapon of war during its nearly nine-year insurgency which has claimed at least 20,000 lives and made more than two million others homeless. The Islamic State (IS) group affiliate has not claimed responsibility for the abduction but it is understood that a faction headed by Abu Mus'ab al-Barnawi was behind it. In August 2015, IS publicly backed Barnawi as leader of Boko Haram, or Islamic State West Africa Province, over Abubakar Shekau, whose supporters carried out the Chibok abduction. Analysts have attributed a financial motive to the Dapchi kidnapping given government ransom payments made to Boko Haram to secure the release of some of the captives from Chibok. On Tuesday, Amnesty International claimed that the military ignored repeated warnings about the movements of Boko Haram fighters before the kidnapping. The military rejected the allegation, calling it an "outright falsehood". Similar claims were made about the hours leading up to the Chibok abduction, which brought sustained worldwide attention on the conflict for the first time. The Chibok abduction also triggered a global campaign for their release, spearheaded by the US former first lady Michelle Obama. There was no similar campaign for the Dapchi girls. Since May 2016, 107 Chibok girls have escaped, been found or been released as part of a government-brokered deal with the jihadists. London: Cambridge Analytica, the British firm at the centre of a major data scandal rocking Facebook, has suspended its chief executive as lawmakers demanded answers from the social media giant over the breach. Alexander Nix will stand aside pending an investigation into boasts he made to an undercover reporter about entrapping politicians and operating shadowy front companies "and other allegations", the company board said. "In the view of the Board, Mr. Nix's recent comments secretly recorded by Channel 4 and other allegations do not represent the values or operations of the firm and his suspension reflects the seriousness with which we view this violation," the company said in a statement. Cambridge Analytica has denied claims it harvested data from up to 50 million Facebook users as part of its work for US President Donald Trump's election campaign. But the row has plunged Facebook into a major scandal, facing investigations on both sides of the Atlantic over its use of personal data, while its share price has been hit. A British parliamentary committee called on Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday to personally explain to them what happened with "this catastrophic failure of process". Committee chairman Damian Collins, who is leading an investigation into fake news, said officials at the firm had "consistently understated" the risk of data being taken from users without consent. Zuckerberg has also been invited to address the European Parliament, its president Antonio Tajani said. "Facebook needs to clarify before the representatives of 500 million Europeans that personal data is not being used to manipulate democracy," he tweeted. The parliament and the European Commission, the 28-nation EU executive, have already called for an urgent investigation into the scandal. US lawmakers have also called on Zuckerberg to appear before Congress, along with the chief executives of Twitter and Google. Facebook shares were down 5.3 per cent at around 11:30 pm IST, following reports the Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether it violated a 2011 consent decree over the handling of consumer data. Shares of Facebook had already lost 6.8 per cent on Monday. A former Cambridge Analytica employee claims it developed an app downloaded by 270,000 people to scoop up information about their friends, which were then used to design software to predict and influence voters' choices at the ballot box. The company blames the academic who developed the app, University of Cambridge psychologist Aleksandr Kogan, for misusing the data, adding that it was never used on the Trump campaign, and has anyway been deleted. But the firm's reputation took a fresh hit on Monday, with the broadcast of secret footage showing Nix saying it could entrap politicians in compromising situations with bribes and sex workers. He also said the firm secretly campaigns in elections around the world, including by operating through a web of shadowy front companies, or by using sub-contractors, according to Channel 4 News. Washington: President Donald Trump was warned in briefing materials to refrain from congratulating Russian President Vladimir Putin on his re-election, but he did so anyway, a senior administration official said on Wednesday. Aides included a section in Trump's briefing materials for the yesterday morning call stating: "DO NOT CONGRATULATE," said the official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. The message was first reported by The Washington Post. It was unclear whether Trump, who prefers oral briefings, read the talking points prepared by his national security team before the call. National Security Adviser HR McMaster briefed the president in person before the call in the White House residence. Trump's call of congratulations drew him bruising criticism from members of his own party even before the Post reported that aides had given him instructions not to do so. Trump also said he and Putin might meet "in the not too distant future" to discuss the arms race and other matters. What they didn't discuss yesterday was noteworthy as well: Trump did not raise Russia's meddling in the US elections or its suspected involvement in the recent poisoning of a former spy in Britain. "An American president does not lead the free world by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee and has pressed the Trump administration to respond aggressively to Russia's interference in the U.S. presidential election. Republican Sen Jeff Flake of Arizona, a frequent Trump critic, called the president's call "odd." Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Trump "can call whomever he chooses" but noted that calling Putin "wouldn't have been high on my list." At the State Department, spokeswoman Heather Nauert said it was "no surprise" that Putin was re-elected, commenting that some people were paid to turn out to vote and opposition leaders were intimidated or jailed. She also cited a preliminary report by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that said Russia's election took place in an overly controlled environment that lacked an even playing field for all contenders. Her comments were notably tougher on Russia than those coming from the White House. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended Trump's call and noted that President Barack Obama made a similar call at the time of Putin's last electoral victory. "We don't get to dictate how other countries operate," Sanders said. The action and reaction fit a Trump White House pattern of declining to chide authoritarian regimes for undemocratic practices. Trump himself has long been reluctant to publicly criticize Putin. He said that during their hoped-for meeting the two men would likely discuss Ukraine, Syria and North Korea, among other things. "I suspect that we'll probably be meeting in the not too distant future to discuss the arms race, to discuss the arms race, which is getting out of control, but we will never allow anybody to have anything even close to what we have," Trump said. White House staffers are frustrated by the damaging leak from a sensitive document accessible only to a select group of aides, the senior administration official told the AP. Russia has received global condemnation after Britain blamed Moscow for the recent nerve agent attack that sickened Sergei Skripal and his daughter. Russia has denied the accusation. Trump's call came at a period of heightened tensions between the two nations after the White House imposed sanctions on Russia for its interference in the 2016 U S election and other "malicious cyberattacks." Sanders insisted that the administration has scolded Putin at the appropriate times. "We've been very clear in the actions that we've taken that we're going to be tough on Russia, particularly when it comes to areas that we feel where they've stepped out of place." The Kremlin said in a statement that Trump and Putin spoke about a need to "coordinate efforts to limit the arms race" and for closer cooperation on strategic stability and counterterrorism. "Special attention was given to considering the issue of a possible bilateral summit," the Kremlin statement said. In addition, the two presidents expressed satisfaction with the apparent easing of tensions over North Korea's weapons program, according to the Kremlin. No details were released about the timing or location of a possible meeting, which would be their third since Trump took office in January 2017. London: An Indian-origin family, involved in a car accident with a popular British celebrity, said on Wednesday the TV star who was later arrested for drink-driving never came out of his vehicle and did not apologise for crashing into them. London-based restaurant owner Faheem Vanoo was at the wheel of his car with his wife Shilpa Dandekar and four-year-old daughter Amaira and two colleagues when television personality Ant McPartlin crashed into them. They did not suffer serious injuries but were left shaken by the collision that took place on Tuesday. "I don't care whether he's a millionaire and I don't care whether he's a famous TV star he could have put my daughter in a wheelchair," Vanoo told the Sun' newspaper. "His Mini came flying around a sharp corner on the wrong side of the road trying to overtake a blue car we were all wearing seat belts and my little girl was strapped into a child seat. But it was still a big impact, said the 41-year-old. After the collision, they saw the television personality sitting slumped at the wheel behind car air bags. "I was so angry with him I lost my cool and tried to run up to him and smash his face I had to be held back After I calmed down someone asked him if he was ok but he never said a word to us and never apologised, said Dandekar. "The horn of his car was blaring and my little girl was crying in shock. It was a terrible, chaotic scene. It was a little while later before I realised it was Ant," recalled the 36-year-old chef, who suffered a bruised lip in the accident. Their daughter was assessed in an ambulance at the scene but did not require hospital treatment. The family were on their way to an evening shift at their restaurant 'Pure Indian' in south west London. Ant McPartlin has since been arrested and bailed on suspicion of drink-driving. His flagship show 'Saturday Night Takeaway' has been pulled off the air for this weekend while he has checked into rehab. The European Commission adopted on Wednesday a proposal for a Council decision to authorize it to negotiate with Morocco an amendment to the current Fisheries Partnership Agreement and a renewed protocol that includes the Sahara. The objective is to preserve and further develop the fisheries partnership between the EU and Morocco, by concluding an agreement and protocol that are environmentally sustainable, economically profitable and fully in line with international and EU law, the European Commission said in a release. The EU proposal includes extension of the bilateral agreement with Morocco to the Moroccan Sahara. Morocco is a close partner of the EU that benefits from the advanced status in the context of the Unions neighborhood policy and the EU Morocco Association Agreement, said the Commission in the release. The Commission believes that the proposed amended agreement and the renewed protocol would help strengthen monitoring, control and surveillance and contribute to improved governance of the fisheries in the region. In addition, the Commission noted in the release, the initiatives will be beneficial for Morocco, in particular in view of the importance of the financial contribution to be paid under the Protocol as a contribution to the Moroccan Halieutis strategy on the development of the fisheries sector. EU operators, including artisanal vessels, from several Member States are expected to benefit from the fishing opportunities made available through the amended agreement and the renewed protocol, the Commission argued. The European Commission had commissioned last year an audit report on the Morocco-EU fisheries accord that concluded that the agreement has worked satisfactorily and that 75% of its socio-economic impacts benefit the Moroccan southern regions. The report recommended the renewal of this agreement, which will expire in July this year, as it stands as an instrument of in-depth cooperation with the North African Kingdom. The European Union had voiced appreciation for the conclusions of the retrospective and prospective evaluation report, which highlights the socio-economic benefits of the fisheries agreement with Morocco and which considers that the agreement has proved effective in achieving its sustainable exploitation objective. Jerusalem: Israel for the first time confirmed that it bombed a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007, saying on Wednesday that the strike removed a major threat to Israel and the region and was a "message" to others. The first public acknowledgement by Israel that its F-16 warplanes carried out the September 6 2007 bombing of the partially constructed Al-Kubar facility near Deir al-Zor was made after military censors lifted a more than 10-year order that had barred Israeli officials from discussing it. The strike had already been extensively reported on abroad, and discussed by U.S. officials. The Israeli military released newly declassified operational footage, photographs and intelligence documents about the bombing, showing the moment that the suspected reactor was hit, an detailing the intelligence operation that led up to it. Israeli intelligence reports concluded that the reactor had been under construction with North Korean help and was months away from activation. Reuters has been unable to immediately verify the Israeli material. Israels decision to go public comes after repeated calls in recent months by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the United States and international community to take tougher action on Syrias ally, Iran. "The motivation of our enemies has grown in recent years, but so too the might of the IDF (Israel Defence Forces)," Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Wednesday. "Everyone in the Middle East would do well to internalise this equation," he said. The 5 a.m. Wednesday release of the declassified documents prompted a cascade of Israeli newspaper and television reports. The Israeli military described in detail the events leading up to the night of Sept 5 to Sept 6, 2007, in which, it said, eight F-16 warplanes took off from the Ramon and Hatzerim air bases and flew to Deir al-Zor region, 450 km northwest of Damascus, Syria. The operation was launched after it received intelligence indicating that "a substantial threat to Israel and the region, in the form of a nuclear reactor, was being built in Syria". "Top Secret" The military declassified internal "top secret" intelligence reports, in Hebrew, some of them partly redacted. One, dated March 30, 2007, said: "Syria has set up, within its territory, a nuclear reactor for the production of plutonium, through North Korea, which according to an (initial) worst-case assessment is liable to be activated in approximately another year. To our assessment [REDACTED] secretive and orderly [REDACTED] for achieving a nuclear weapon." Israeli intelligence predicted that the suspected reactor "would turn operational by the end of 2007". The mission to destroy the facility started at 10.30 p.m. on Sept. 5 and ended with safe return of the warplanes at 2.30 a.m. the next day, the Israeli military said. The military said the reactor "had been totally disabled, and that the damage done was irreversible". It decided at the time not to go public with the strike. As it happened, the event was first made public by Syria, which, as reported by Reuters at the time, said in the early hours of Sept. 6 that Syrian air defences had repelled an incursion by Israeli warplanes. Syria, a signatory of the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has always denied that the site was a reactor or that Damascus engaged in nuclear cooperation with North Korea. The Israeli military announcement on Wednesday noted that the area in question, around Deir al-Zor, was captured by Islamic State after the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011. Had there been an active reactor there, the Israeli military said, it would have had "severe strategic implications on the entire Middle East as well as Israel and Syria". Countdown The Israeli release contains a black-and-white aerial photograph captioned "before the attack" and showing a box-like square structure amid desert dunes with smaller outlying buildings. A series of black-and-white videos, taken above the target, shows the structure in cross-hairs. A male voice is heard counting down three seconds, a cloud of black smoke rises from the centre of the structure as it explodes. Other footage appears to show the aftermath - a smouldering hole in the ground. A clip taken from "The Air Force Control Center, headed by the Commander of the IAF, Maj. Gen. Eliezer Shkedi" shows assembled Israeli air force personnel, some of their faces pixellated, applauding as they receive an update. In declassified and unredacted letters to Shkedi, then Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak and then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert praise the operation. Wednesday's release came ahead of the publication of a memoir by Olmert. One of his aides told Reuters the book would contain passages about the 2007 strike in Syria. Yangon: Myanmar's President Htin Kyaw resigned suddenly on Wednesday leaving the country's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi without a close confidant and political ally as she faces rising international opprobrium over the Rakhine crisis. The president is an old school friend of Suu Kyi, serving as her proxy in an office she was barred from occupying according to Myanmar's military-drafted constitution. His role was largely ceremonial given Suu Kyi had awarded herself the title State Counsellor and called the shots within her civilian administration. But he was nonetheless the country's head of state and a key domestic ally for Suu Kyi within her party. Speculation had swirled for months about the health of Htin Kyaw, 72, who had recently lost weight and has had heart problems in the past. "Myanmar President U Htin Kyaw resigned on March 21, 2018," a statement on the president's official Facebook page said. His office did not give many details for why he resigned Wednesday, only saying that "he wanted to take a rest from his current duty". It added that a new leader will be selected in "within seven working days". There were no immediate candidates put forward as long term successors, but several senior party names were floated when Suu Kyi took power. Myanmar's Vice President Myint Swe, a former general, will move into the role until a new president is in place, according to the constitution. Loyal school friend Htin Kyaw, the countrys first civilian president since 1962, was widely respected and seen as completely loyal to Suu Kyi's who said she would rule "above" him after he was elected in 2016. He has stood firmly by her side even as as her reputation lies shattered internationally for not speaking up on behalf of the persecuted Rohingya Muslim community. A violent military crackdown has forced some 700,000 Rohingya to flee over the border into squalid camps in Bangladesh, in what the UN has branded as "ethnic cleansing" with possible "hallmarks of genocide". The military justifies its campaign as a legitimate response to Rohingya militant attacks against police posts in August. The civilian government is in a transitional power-sharing arrangement with the army which still retains huge political and economic power. The army controls three key ministries - home affairs, borders and defence -- effectively giving the army a carte blanche to conduct any security operations it chooses. It also has a quarter of legislative seats reserved for officers, giving the military a de facto veto over any constitutional change. Defenders of Suu Kyi say her government's hands are tied by the military but critics maintain it could and should have done more to speak up against alleged army atrocities, particularly in Rakhine State. Htin Kyaw is the son of a revered poet and helped run Suu Kyi's charitable foundation before taking over the presidency. According to an official biography, Htin Kyaw studied at the University of London's Institute of Computer Science from 1971 to 1972. In a varied career he worked as a university teacher and also held positions in the finance and national planning and foreign affairs ministries in the late 1970s and 80s before retiring from government service as the military tightened its grip. Singapore: Singapore passed a law on Wednesday making it possible to ban photographs or videos of terror attack sites or communicating information about security operations amid criticism from rights groups that the move could curb press freedoms. The wealthy city-state ranks as one of the safest countries in the world, but authorities say it has been a target of Islamic extremists since the 1990s and they have stepped up efforts to deter an attack. The bill, proposed last month, includes provisions to ban anyone from taking videos or photographs of the area of a terror attack or transmitting them. It can also ban communication of text or audio messages about the security operations in the area. The measures can be taken under a "communications stop" order if approved by the home affairs minister and activated by the police commissioner. "The CSO (communications stop order) is not an information blackout throughout the terror incident," Josephine Teo, minister in the Prime Minister's Office, told parliament ahead of the vote. Information leaks to terrorists could risk the lives of security officers and those caught up in an attack, the home affairs ministry has said, citing media coverage of police operations in a 2015 attack in Paris and a 2008 attack in India's financial capital of Mumbai. Groups that advocate press freedom have expressed concern that the law gives the government the power to restrict what can be reported. Human Rights Watch separately said the inclusion of public protests as an example of a "serious incident" meant the law can be used to infringe on freedom of speech. Anyone planning a public protest is required to obtain a police permit in Singapore and are only allowed at a designated area in a small downtown park. Only Singaporean citizens and permanent residents can participate. The Singaporean governments history of persecuting dissenting voices makes the proposed public order law particularly frightening, Asia director at Human Rights Watch Brad Adams said in a press release last week. "Public protests are not a threat that justify the wholesale repeal of basic rights." Breaches of the new measures could lead to a maximum fine of S$20,000 ($15,200) and prison terms of up to two years. The passage of the security law comes as Singapore holds a landmark public hearing on how to tackle the threat of fake news. Moscow: A Cold War-era scientist acknowledged on Tuesday he had helped create the nerve agent that Britain says was used to poison an ex-spy and his daughter, contradicting Moscow's insistence that neither Russia nor the Soviet Union ever had such a programme. However, Professor Leonid Rink told the RIA news agency that the attack did not look like Moscow's work because Sergei and Yulia Skripal had not died immediately. The Skripals remain alive but in critical condition more than two weeks after they were found unconscious in the English cathedral town of Salisbury. A policeman who helped them is also in hospital in a serious condition. Rink said he worked under the Soviet Union at a chemical weapons facility where the Novichok military-grade nerve agent was developed. Asked if he was one of Novichok's creators, he told RIA: "Yes. It was the basis for my doctoral dissertation." Moscow has denied any involvement in the Skripals' case or that the Soviet Union or its successor state Russia developed Novichok at all. Echoing a theory floated in Russian state media, Rink said the British could have been behind the attack. "It's hard to believe that the Russians were involved, given that all of those caught up in the incident are still alive," he said. "Such outrageous incompetence by the alleged (Russian) spies would have simply been laughable and unacceptable." Inspectors from the world's chemical weapons watchdog have begun examining the poison used in the attack which London blames on Moscow. Rink told RIA he had worked at a Soviet chemicals weapons research facility in the town of Shikhany in Russia's Saratov Region for 27 years until the early 1990s. Novichok was not a single substance, he said, but a system of using chemical weapons and had been called 'Novichok-5' by the Soviet Union. "A big group of specialists in Shikhany and in Moscow worked on Novichok on the technologies, toxicologies and biochemistry," he said. "In the end we achieved very good results." Rink confessed to having secretly supplied a military-grade poison for cash that was used to murder a Russian banking magnate and his secretary in 1995. In a statement to investigators after his arrest, viewed by Reuters, Rink said he was in possession of poisons created as part of the chemical weapons programme which he stored in his garage. Rink received a one-year suspended prison sentence for "misuse of powers" after a secret trial, according to a lawyer involved in the case. 'HEIGHT OF IDIOCY' Rink told RIA it would have been absurd for Russian spies to have used Novichok to try to kill the Skripals because of its obviously Russian origin and Russian name. "There are lots of more suitable substances," he said. "To fire the equivalent of a powerful rocket at someone who is not a threat and to miss would be the height of idiocy." He dismissed British media reports that Yulia Skripal could have unwittingly carried Novichok from Moscow as "utter nonsense", saying Novichok would not have survived the journey. Once secret, Rink said the technology behind Novichok was now known to many countries including Britain, the United States and China, who he said were capable of manufacturing a version of Novichok. However, he said the exact formula devised by the Soviet Union was unique and that it should be possible, based on a sample of the toxin used in the Salisbury attack, to say it was not "cooked up" in Russia. Another Russian scientist called Vil Mirzayanov had done a lot to publicise the formulas used to produce Novichok, Rink said. Mirzayanov, who now lives in the United States, told Reuters this month that only the Russian government could have carried out the attack. Rink said he knew of "about five" scientists familiar with the Novichok technology who had left Russia in the 1990s. "Permission to let them leave generated great surprise in our institute," Rink told RIA. Nanyuki, Kenya: The world's last male northern white rhino has died, the Kenyan conservancy taking care of it said, leaving only two females of its subspecies alive in the world, although scientists still hope to save it from extinction by in vitro fertilisation. Ol Pejeta Conservancy said it had made the decision with wildlife officials to put down the 45-year-old rhino, named Sudan on Monday, because of a rapid deterioration in his condition. Sudan was being treated for age-related complications that had affected his muscles and bones and also gave him extensive skin wounds. Sudan had previously lived at the Dver Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic before being transported to Ol Pejeta Conservancy, about 250 km (155 miles) north of Nairobi, where he lived with the last two females of the same species, his 27-year-old daughter Najin and 17-year-old granddaughter Fatu. The two female rhinos were quietly grazing at the conservancy on Tuesday, where staff mourned Sudan. "It's very sad to lose Sudan because it shows clearly the extent of human greed and what sort of impact humans beings can have on nature," Samuel Mutisya, head of wildlife conservation at Ol Pejeta, told Reuters. "If we don't take care of what we have, we will definitely continue to lose it, particularly lose other species that are currently endangered. Veterinarian Dr Stephen Ngulu said doctors recommended putting the ageing rhino down because he was in severe pain, with no hope of treatment to alleviate it. "Sunday morning, he completely was unable to wake up. His left hind foot gave in completely, he was unable to support himself on it and he was not able to raise," he said. "We decided to evaluate the quality of life and advise stakeholders that this available option would be the better option: to alleviate pain, suffering." The rhino had spent two weeks in late February and early March lying in his pen due to discomfort from a deep wound on his right hind leg, the conservancy said. "The veterinary team from the Dvur Kralove Zoo, Ol Pejeta and Kenya Wildlife Service made the decision to euthanise him." After all attempts at getting Sudan to mate naturally failed, conservationists last year put him on dating app Tinder, hoping to raise enough money to pay for a $9 million fertility treatment. Ol Pejeta said that staff had collected Sudan's genetic material on Monday, which could be used in future to attempt reproduction of northern white rhinos. It said scientists were also seeking ways to perform in vitro fertilisation. "The only hope for the preservation of this subspecies now lies in developing in vitro fertilisation techniques using eggs from the two remaining females, stored northern white rhino semen from males and surrogate southern white rhino females," it said. While there are thousand of southern white rhinos still roaming the plains of sub-Saharan Africa, decades of rampant poaching have drastically cut numbers of northern whites. Poachers were able to sell northern white rhino horns for $50,000 per kilo, making them more valuable than gold. Kenya had 20,000 rhinos in the 1970s, falling to 400 in the 1990s. It now has 650, almost all of which are black rhinos. 404 We're sorry! The page you were looking for couldn't be found. The Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft for the next International Space Station (ISS) crew, consisting of astronauts Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold of the U.S and crewmate Oleg Artemyev of Russia, is placed on the launch pad ahead of its upcoming launch, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. (Image: Reuters) Marvel Comics killed off Spider-Man, Scarlet Witch, and Dr. Strange right before their MCU returns . or did they? Marvel seemingly killing Peter Parker, Wanda Maximoff, and Stephen Strange right before their big new movies has gotten complicated King Mohammed VI of Morocco has described the signing this Wednesday of the agreement setting up the African Continental Free Trade Area as a defining moment in history and a landmark event, which attests to African States shared determination to build an Africa for the future. In a speech to the Extraordinary Summit of the African Union on the Continental Free Trade Area, held in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, the sovereign said that the launching of the AfCFTA, an initiative by Africa, for Africa, is a critical step towards the achievement of multifaceted development in Africa, and a pragmatic step towards an integrated, prosperous Africa, which is attuned to international realities. The creation of the largest free trade area in the world, with the youngest population on the planet, is a landmark event, which attests to our shared determination to build an Africa for the future, he said, noting that this initiative brings in new prospects, practices and solidarity mechanisms. A continental free trade area stimulates capacities and enhances knowledge and insight. More than anything else, however, it fulfils the desire and ambition of our young people to build a strong, integrated Africa. The Monarch pointed out further that this initiative expands and builds on the countless measures taken by our respective countries to promote intra-African trade. It will boost investment, stimulate economic growth, enhance continental interconnectivity and inject fresh momentum into African integration. King Mohammed VI explained that open market economy and the establishment of free trade areas do not go without rising legitimate concerns and creating some challenges, however, once those concerns and challenges are addressed, it becomes clear that economic openness has many benefits and translates into gains for the national economy, contributing to the emergence of new value chains. He warned against impeding such a dynamic, at continental level, as this would delay Africas rise and hamper its competitiveness and development. The sovereign who affirmed that Morocco believes in a kind of co-development, based on intra-African cooperation, economic complementarity, active solidarity and the pooling of resources and efforts, said these are prerequisites for any inclusive growth and for sustainable human development on the Continent. He insisted that the ultimate goal is to transform Africa into a dynamic force and to make it a major player on the international scene for the benefit of our populations. To promote progress in Africa and boost intra-African trade, we need to build on the technological development the world has witnessed and to turn our intra-African trade deficit into opportunities for the development of new digital technologies, he said, adding that, spurred on by young peoples ingenuity, creativity and audacity, digital technology is changing the face of our Continent, which is on its way to becoming a global digital laboratory. We owe this digital quantum leap to young startups operating in the fields of finance, telecommunications, industry and agribusiness, to name but a few. Often, those behind this innovative process are young people from low-income segments of the population. Our young people ought, therefore, to take center stage in our public policies, he urged. The African Continental Free Trade Area is a key instrument for the promotion of this new economic development paradigm centered on innovation, diversification and exchange rooted in solidarity, the Monarch stated further. Morocco signed on Wednesday the agreement launching the AfCFTA, to make the continent the largest free trade area created since the formation of the World Trade Organization. The AfCFTA was inked by Head of the Moroccan Government Saad Eddine El Othmani, who is attending the Kigali extraordinary summit. Congress demands apology from Sushma over Iraq killings New Delhi : The Congress on Tuesday demanded that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj should apologise to families of the 39 Indians, killed in Iraq, for "misleading" them and giving "false hopes", and also demanded that the Narendra Modi government compensate them. Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala cited Parliament papers to show senior Congress leader Ambika Soni had raised this issue with Sushma Swaraj in July 2017, asking her "what was her source for being 100 per cent sure that they were alive", since "one day she (Sushma Swaraj) would say that all this is not known and they are all dead..." "What Ambikaji had said in Parliament has come true today," he said. The party also accused the government of crossing all limits of "insensitivity, inhumanity, and being merciless" as well as politicising the issue and demanded each family should be given Rs 1 crore each. Asking why Sushma Swaraj repeatedly misled the nation and the families and gave them "false hopes", Surjewala said that the government had - seven times from 2014 till July 2017 - said these Indians were safe, alive and being provided basic amenities and food. "The 39 Indians were kidnapped in June 2014. The entire world and the neighbouring countries had confirmed that they were not alive. "When Indian media went to Mosul in July 2017 and reported that the Indians were not alive, Sushma Swaraj and Modi government rejected it. When an eyewitness came forward said that the ISIS have killed the Indians, they rejected it too. "Sushma Swaraj had said when Iraqi Prime Minister comes to India, the government will confirm it from him, but didn't do anything," he added. "Did the government think about the families even once, when they were desperately waiting for their dear ones for four years, he said, adding the minister was now blaming the Congress for politicising it, while praising her government and thanking the PM and her junior minister. Surjewala also asked what was the need to give the statement in a hurry - even when the issue of no-confidence came up, asking if it was because the Iraq's Martyrs Foundation was going to hold a press conference in the afternoon to reveal the truth about the killing of 39 Indians. He said the minister should visit all the families and apologise for misleading them and announcing the news on television first. Soni said: "We had given a call attention in 2014 in Parliament because we didn't have any other option of getting information from the government. But, it refused to share any information." She said that every family should be compensated Rs 1 crore each and Sushma Swaraj should apologise to them publicly. It has been learnt that TB kills an estimated 4,80,000 Indians every year New Delhi : The Union Health Ministry has asked clinical establishments to tuberculosis (TB) cases. It is for the first time that doctors, hospital authorities, chemists and druggists may have to face legal action for not notifying tuberculosis (TB) cases. They may even face a jail term as per IPC sections. By term Clinical establishments Act 2010, the ministry means medical establishments, hospitals, clinics, dispensaries, diagnostic services, including those operated by a single doctor. The ministry has asked the establishments to inform about tuberculosis patient to the nodal officer and local public health staff. In case of failure, the concerned person might be punished with a jail term of six months to two years under the provisions of Sections 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) and 270 (malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). As per IPC, Section 269 provides for a jail term of six months and/ or fine, Section 270 has provision for a jail term of two years and/ or fine. In India, TB was defined as a notifiable disease in 2012. However, there was no provision for penal action. The Union Health Ministry mentioned in its notification. To ensure proper tuberculosis diagnosis and its management in patients and their contacts and to reduce tuberculosis transmission and further to address the problems of emergence and spread of drug-resistant tuberculosis, it is essential to collect complete information of all tuberculosis patients Healthcare providers, termed as clinical establishments henceforth, shall notify every tuberculosis patient to local public health authority, namely, district health officer or chief medical officer of a district and municipal health officer of urban local bodies in whatever way they are known; or their designated district tuberculosis officers in a format as specified, Of late, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched a TB-free India campaign. While attending End-TB Summit in Delhi, PM Modi mentioned that the government has been following certain principle of treat every TB patient best at the very first opportunity. As per health report, TB kills an estimated 4,80,000 Indians every year. India also has more than a million missing cases every year which are not notified, and most remain either undiagnosed or inadequately diagnosed and treated in the private sector. A presentation of Tiangong-1 New Delhi : Chinese space station Tiangong-1 is in the limelight for some days. The space agency lost control over Tiangong-1 in 2016 and later, it was decommissioned and deorbited. But now, it is making a comeback. Both European Space Agency (ESA) and Aerospace Corporation believes to re-inaugurate the space lab between March 24 and April 6 Tiangong-1 is the first space station launched by China as add on towards space exploration launched way back in 2011. However, in 2016, the agency lost control over Tiangong-1 and has to decommission it. After losing control over the space lab which has been falling towards the Earth researchers across the globe have been trying to pinpoint the exact location of its re-entry. Also, they are looking for possible date at which it will enter despite the doubt associated with its velocity relative to the Earth, its rotating and mass, and other parameters. According to the data collected and presented by a paleolithic archaeologist Dr. Marco Langbroek, an avid satellite tracker, the space lab might make its re-entry in the Earths atmosphere on March 31. However, knowing the assumed date of en-entry is just one factor. Scientists are still uncertain about the location where it will crash or plunge. According to Popular Mechanics, pinpointing the location of its re-entry is not possible. Its because the space station revolves around the Earth several times per day which means, even a minute difference can take the station to a completely different way. According to the estimates, the station might plunged into the Earths atmosphere within 45-degree North latitude and 43-degree South latitude which is coincidentally the region with most human population that includes countries not limited to India, Australia, Brazil, United States, Egypt, China, Mexico, etc but the major portion of this region is covered with oceans. Though the space station is forced into a populated area, it wont cause much harm since it will emit upon entry. Even if some pieces of the spacecraft escape from the atmosphere, the chances of getting hit by any piece are equivalent to 1 in 10 million chances of getting hit by a lightning bolt in a year which is extremely low. Although scientists are still concerned about the toxic substance that might contain such as Hydrazine for which, even a trace amount if escapes the Earths atmosphere can cause a big threat. Dr. Marco Langbroek has been monitoring the fall of the space station for past few weeks. He said about the current altitude of the space station which is at 215 km off Earth as on March 20. It is estimated that the station is oscillating at around 5.5 days peak-to-peak and falling towards Earth at a velocity of 2 to 3 km per day which will increase quickly in the coming days due to Earths gravitational pull. He also pointed out that the space station will start to burn up at 100 km from Earths surface and eventually initiate breaking apart at 70 to 80 km of altitude. Once again, the space station might plunge on March 31, give or take 3 days. Expert says that when the giant Chinese space station will enter into the Earths atmosphere, it will form into a spectacular fireball which will be spectacular to watch from the Earth. NEWTOWN Among the 440 Newtowners taking buses to the youth-led march in Washington, D.C., on Saturday to call for gun safety laws is a group of high schoolers who were in fourth grade at Sandy Hook School in 2012. When those Newtown high schoolers meet peers from the Florida school where a gunman massacred 17 students and staff on Valentines Day, the Newtown students will be in a unique position to understand the horror of hearing gunfire in classrooms, and the terror of seeing peers run for their lives. The students who are freshmen at Newtown High School, who were fourth graders at Sandy Hook when the shooting occurred, feel a special connection to those students from Florida, and that is why we are attempting to connect them, said Po Murray, chair of the Newtown Action Alliance one of two homegrown nonprofits that are paying for buses to take Newtown residents to Saturdays March for Our Lives protest. Our students have a lot to offer the students from Florida. The Newtown high schoolers who survived the 2012 massacre of 26 students and educators at Sandy Hook School are part of a 200-youth contingent who will leave Newtown in eight chartered buses Saturday to join thousands in a national march to protest the lack of congressional action on gun policy reform. For those who cannot travel to Washington, D.C, some 830 local marches are planned across the country, including in Roxbury, Westport, Stamford and Hartford. Locally, buses have been chartered to take marchers to the Hartford protest from Joel Barlow High School in Redding and from Ridgefield High School. Other groups that are sponsoring buses to the march in Washington include the Bridgeport-based Connecticut Civic Action Group, which has chartered a bus out of Danbury early Saturday morning. The march, organized by survivors of the Feb. 14 massacre at Floridas Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, comes 10 days after a youth-organized national student walkout to remember the victims and call for gun safety legislation. A second national student walkout organized by Ridgefield High School sophomore Lane Murdock is planned for April 20. The youth-led movement, which has captured the nations attention and emboldened activists, appears to embody zeal that America has not seen since the Vietnam War protests two generations ago. Its been incredible just incredible and America is ready for it, said Murray, whose group formed after the Sandy Hook shooting to lobby for gun violence prevention. Weve witnessed too many mass shootings with no action since Sandy Hook. Murray said the initial thought was to charter three buses to transport Newtowners to Saturdays march. Interest was so widespread that the nonprofits added five more buses from Newtown, and started a waiting list. Newtown Action Alliance also chartered a bus to leave from the University of Connecticut in Storrs. Murray said the youth are not only inspiring a movement that has been looking for a tipping point, but supplying hope for the future. They are not only marching and walking out of school but they will be walking into the polls, Murray said. While the above question is one I never envisioned having to answer, its amazing how similar the challenges are between: 1) orchestrating a successful Kickstarter campaign; 2) launching a startup after age 50; and 3) fighting cancer. Related: Sheryl Sandberg's Response to Life's Crushing Blows Is Grit and Resilience -- Here Are 5 Ways to Build Both Lets start where these three prongs of my life began to converge two years ago. On March 8, 2016, I launched my first crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter which ended that April 12). I had previously passed on potential investments from venture capitalists to fund the first-of-its-kind: The Edge Desk. I saw my product, a portable and kneeling desk, as indicative of where people are today; and I was eager to get it out there. But first I had a major decision to make. Weve been hearing about the massive changes in the retail landscape and last week's news of ToysRUs' closing is just another example (albeit a big one) So, Im happy to say we made the right choice when we rejected the brick and mortar retail route. Instead, I decided to step out of my comfort zone, expose my idea on social media/crowdfunding and let the whole world poke holes at it and tell me what they thought. History and past successes be damned: It was time to see if anyone really wanted the product and find out if I had what it takes to market in todays consumer centric world. Well, a happy update: Not only did 1,500 people in 41 countries decide to back my product during the Kickstarter campaign, but I actually benefited from the honest feedback, critiques and suggestions I received from around the world. Cancer So, flash forward to July 17, 2017. My design and production were in gear; my team of five was hard at work. But while I thought Kickstarter was tough, after that fateful July day, I soon realized I hadnt seen anything. Related: 7 Challenges That Will Make You More Successful The day began with a run. While stretching afterward, I looked down at my legs to find two black and blue handprints, one on each leg. After a quick trip to the doctor, I was in the ER that afternoon by 4:30 p.m., facing a diagnosis of leukemia. An hour later, I had my first dose of chemo. I was at a low point that for me was unimaginable, when a ray of light hit: My doc told me that while I faced a battle, the leukemia I had had a 90 percent-plus cure rate. Game on. Lessons learned First: I know what I know, and I dont know what I dont know. I've always been aware of this truism. But my product provided me the opportunity to apply it to make my product better. Todays consumers expect complete transparency if they are going to support a brand with their hard-earned funds. Success today, therefore, requires a dialogue with your target audience, not a monologue. Second: You cant get by without a little help from your friends. Our Kickstarter campaign had an aggressive target of $165,000. We did our homework, which was what we needed to to do get the tooling done and go to production. I went to everyone I knew asking for posts on Facebook and LinkedIn; and, in large part, thanks to friends with huge networks, we were able to hit our goal in 50 hours. Ultimately, we secured $484,000 in crowdfunding; and some of this happened, I believe, because the paradigm had shifted: Big box retailers were, and are, taking a back seat to ecommerce. Traditional funders were, and are, being given a run for their money -- literally -- by crowdfunding sites. And we had success in that sphere: Believe it or not, there have been just over 140,000 successful Kickstarter campaigns, and ours finished in the top 1 percent of them. We were off and running; and with our campaign came some lessons learned. The first lesson: Change is good. We proved to the world that we were open to new ideas and this new -- crowdfunding -- way of doing business. For me, our campaign on that platform was the first time in 20 years I wasnt marketing myself as someone who'd worked as senior vp of marketing at Hasbro and overseen the promotion of some of the most successful toys ever created (ever hear of Furby?) Suddenly I had become the kneeling desk guy. It felt great to know that I could start a second career after age 50. It felt good to do it in a way that combined what had worked for me previously (e.g., Never take no for an answer) and adjust to the new go-to market strategies that are necessary today. Still, if I thought Kickstarter was tough, when the cancer hit, I realized I hadnt seen anything. March 23 this year will be awesome. It will be my 120th round of arsenic (an alternative to chemo), marking the completion of my treatment, which has included 34 days in the hospital, thousands of pills, numerous transfusions -- and, the good part: so many calls, emails, visits and check-ins from family and friends that I will never be able to thank everyone enough. The second lesson: We all need help. Whether your challenge is a battle like mine, or the search for a new job, the start of a new business, or a campaign on Kickstarter: At times, we all need help. The best doctors, nurses,and caregivers at Kellogg Cancer Center in Illinois made it possible for me to be here writing this and getting ready to get back to work. My family, which extends to friends, associates and so many more, has kept me laser-focused on my only real job: to get better. No one likes to admit having cancer and needing help. And, in fact, hearing myself say that for the first time was surreal; it still is. But the key is recognizing and understanding that if you do as you're told, there's a great chance you will be able to get back to doing the things that you love. The third lesson: "Be that friend you would want." In other words, be the friend that you, at one time or another, will ultimately need. Take that call from a friends kid looking for his or her first job; help an associate brainstorm a solution to a complex problem, without worrying about time or compensation. Make time to help others; it comes back tenfold. Whats up next for me? Getting back the keys. My work family was incredible, making sure that The Edge Desk kept moving forward during my hiatus. They took all the feedback from our Kickstarter supporters and made improvements. As a result, the product is awesome, and we are now about to go all-in on global sales and marketing efforts. Were even developing our newest edition, so watch out. Related: If You Want to Get Funded on Kickstarter, Research Says to Avoid These Tactics And, as for that original question I posed, of "Which is hardest?": I guess its a trick question, as only time will tell. Im just thrilled to still be here so I can find out. Related: So, What's Harder? Taking on Kickstarter, Launching a Startup After Age 50 or Fighting Cancer? 5 Things One Should Keep in Mind While Joining the Family Business Figuring Out What Can Sink Your Business -- and How You Can Save It Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com It began with a simple tweet. While he was covering the Winter Olympics for NBC in South Korea, figure skating commentator Johnny Weir sent a missive that warmed our hearts. I go between studying my skater biographies & looking for a new house. @realtordotcom @sothebysrealty #olympics #olympicclosets It turns out the former Olympic skater is ready to make yet another daring leapinto homeownership! We wanted to learn more about Weir's housing search and what home means to the commentator known for his over-the-top dedication to fashion. We quickly learned his taste in housing doesn't exactly square up with assumptions you might have. Despite his love for dramatic attire, he's actually a down-to-earth dude when it comes to picking the locale of his dream home. (Marie Antoinette reference aside!) The-Hall of Mirrors, Palace of Versailles, France. DEA / G. SIOEN/ Getty Images Q: So, Johnny, what is your dream house? A: My dream house is Versailles or the Hermitage. But a common misconception about me is that I live in some very "Jetsons"-style, modern, very sleek, egg-shaped house on top of a building somewhere in New York. That couldn't be further from the truth. I live and am looking for my first home in rural Pennsylvania. It's where I'm from. I came back down here maybe four years ago, after the Sochi Olympics. Now I'm looking for a first home that's going to be mine, and hopefully be in the family forever. I was in northern New Jersey and New York for a long time, and it just got too hectic for me. I need a respite from my very fast-paced work life, and I just found so much comfort in being back home. Q: Why Pennsylvania? A: I'm very interested in privacy. I think that the towns that I'm looking in offer the opportunities to be somewhat secluded in many ways, and that helps me recharge. It helps me find my balance to be in front of millions of people on television and over the top with the hair and the makeup and the whole thing. I need a balance, so I need to be in the rolling hills. I need to be outside with no makeup on. Johnny Weir skates during the Bank of America Winter Village at Bryant Parks Annual Tree Lighting Skate-tacular on December 1, 2017 in New York City. Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images Q: So ... you don't want any next-door neighbors? A: Apartment living is not my thing. Condos are not my thing. I hate listening to other people coming and going, their sound systems, and their kids screaming. I live under a lot of pressure on a daily basis, and to go home and have that annoyance of neighbors is not for me. I need to be able to completely unwind. It's taken me a long time to figure out where I want to live. You'll never find me in a subdivision or an apartment again. It's going to be a free-standing, private home that even Google Maps can't find. I need to be secluded. Q: Besides seclusion, what other filters are you using to narrow your housing choices? A: I'm a first-time home buyer and I am single, and the only other person that really lives with me is a very small dog, so we don't need a lot of space for us. But ... my clothing and my wardrobe is going to require a bigger home simply because I'm going to need two full-sized bedrooms to turn into a giant closet. Fashion is just a big part of my life and my job, and I need a beautiful master suite. I need the space to be able to create an incredible wardrobe and dressing room. It's going to be pretty fantastic. Any of the best boutiques you've ever seen or heard of won't even be a rival for my closet. Q: Are there any other must-haves? A: I'm looking for land. My parents are both 61, and I want a home with enough acreage to actually build a second home on the same property for my parents. I want them to stop worrying about mortgages and bills, because they sacrificed so much for me and my career and my life that I want to be able to do something nice for them. Plus, it'll just be awesome to have my parents close by. Q: Are you the type of home buyer who can envision a remodel, or do you want a turn-key place for your first home? A: Just for how particular I am, I originally thought about building a home. But considering my lifestyle and how rarely I'm actually home, I thought that might be the devil's playground if I started building a home and couldn't be completely hands-on because I'm pretty OCD. I definitely am not against renovating, but I need something with a good base to start from. Figure Skater Johnny Weir performs during the 2014 Artistry On Ice Beijing at Beijing MasterCard Center on July 25, 2014 in Beijing, China. Lintao Zhang/Getty Images Q: Any particular decor trends you love right now? A: Well, I love traditional touches. There's one home in particular I'm very interested in right now that has a very old fireplace with two of those beautiful, old-fashioned wood storage things that are embedded in the wall next to it. Little things like that. At the same time I love over-the-top opulence. I love a crystal chandelier. I love a gold-leaf ceiling in a powder room. Q: Are you going to do the decorating yourself or hire an interior decorator? A: I'd like to handle it all myself. I have so many beautiful things that I've collected from all over the world, and I know how to showcase them. I know how to put them together. Q: Is there a particular color or palette you have in mind? A: I'm very into white and white spaces. White and gold will be my main colors, and then for accent colors, definitely beautiful greens, emerald greens, shiny greens. Q: Any color we won't find in your house? A: Blue. It's an unlucky color for me, and I am not a fan. Marie Antoinette, Dir. Sofia Coppola, 2006, Leigh Johnson / Columbia Pictures Q: Do you have a role model or inspiration for your decor? A: Essentially anything you see in Sofia Coppola's movie "Marie Antoinette." That's my style mood. Also the artist Andrew Wyeth is local to the area I'm looking for a home in. There's a painting ["Christina's World"] that he did of a young girl lying in the grass looking up into this desolate sort of landscape with a home there, and that to me is Pennsylvania. A rolling expanse of land and trees, and sort of those gray winter days when it's about to snow. That's what I want to feel like when I'm home. Christina's World (1948), Andrew Wyeth. Museum of Modern Art, New York City/Wikipedia.org Q: So you're going for country-friendly? Well, our country lifestyle is very welcoming and very forgiving and very happy to have people over. But for me, I want people to constantly feel uncomfortable in my house. Q: What? A: I want them to come over and feel like they can't sit on anything. I'm very Joan Crawford in that way. I don't want you to sit on my furniture. I don't want you to stay for too long. Q: You're going to put plastic covers over all your furniture? A: I don't think I'm going to put plastic over everything. But I've worked really hard and really long to be able to buy a dream home and to fill it with beautiful things. So I love it when people come ineven if they're my closest friendsthey come into my home and they look around, but they never sit down because it almost feels like they shouldn't! Q: So ... no housewarming party? A: There definitely will be a housewarming party, but it'll be family and my closest circle of friends. There will be a lot of wine flowing. There will be people that spend the night and people that stagger home in an Uber. When I throw a party, I do it right and people don't leave until 5 in the morning. Q: What's the one piece of furniture in your home you could not live without? A: I have a beautiful chair. It's an antique and was a side chair in this mansion in Italy. It's kind of decrepit, and it's never been reupholstered or anything. It's from some point in the mid-1700s, and it's very old, and gold, and I don't sit in it. But it has this very faded emerald-green velvet that has been rubbed within an inch of its life. It's kind of my ideal as far as decor goes. Figure Skater Johnny Weir performs during Artistry On Ice 2014 at MasterCard Center on July 25, 2014 in Beijing, China. Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images Q: Finally, what does home mean to Johnny Weir? A: Home is kind of everything to me. I wouldn't be able to do what I do and have the focus to entertain millions of people every year if I didn't have a home base where my things were, that smells like me, some place that is a sanctuary. For me, it hasn't been a life where I want to buy a bunch of homes and, "Oh, that's my Lake Como home. That's my Moscow home. That's my New York apartment." I've always wanted just one home base. I'm lucky enough to travel the world and stay in beautiful hotels all year. But when I think of home, it's just like this glowing presence of peace and happiness. That's what home means to me. The post Johnny Weir Tells Us What He Wants in a Dream Home, and It's So Not What We Expected appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com. Almost 1 in 5 women in Japanese prisons is a senior. Their crimes are usually minor9 in 10 senior women whove been convicted were found guilty of shoplifting. Japan has about 50 to 60 thousand people in prison. The number of Japanese seniors living alone increased by 600 percent between 1985 and 2015 to almost 6 million. Half of the seniors caught shoplifting reported living alone, the government discovered last year, and 40 percent of them said they either dont have family or rarely speak to them. Over ten thousand of almost 6 million seniors living alone prefer prison to living alone outside. There are over 8 million lonely seniors in the United States. They may have a house. They may have a family. But that doesnt mean they have a place they feel at home, Yumi Muranaka, head warden of Iwakuni Womens Prison, told Bloomberg. In 2016, Japans parliament passed a law aiming to ensure that recidivist seniors get support from the countrys welfare and social-service systems. Since then, prosecutors offices and prisons have worked closely with government agencies to get senior offenders the assistance they need. But the problems that lead these women to seek the relative comfort of jail lie beyond the systems reach. Loneliness is bad for your health Getting old in America isnt easy for many people. Things like the death of ones spouse, your family getting dispersed across a broad geography, peoples friends passing away even folks who are very social or connected gradually begin to lose those connections with others in their life. Oftentimes that leads to a decline in peoples self-care, so theyre not taking medicines regularly, not exercising with any regularity, not participating in social activities, and health outcomes suffer. Loneliness is both a result of medical problems and a cause of medical problems. A 2015 study published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science shows that lacking social connections is as damaging to our health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. CareMores Be in the Circle: Be Connected program is the brainchild of Dr. Sachin Jain, the Anthems president. In 2017, CareMore, a unit of Anthem Insurance that offers coverage and health care to more than 100,000 members across seven states, is introducing a campaign to help some of the US populations most socially isolated people: seniors. They have redesigned their care centers, so the waiting areas will be repositioned as social spaces where seniors can drop in and just be there. They have a senior-focused gyms called Nifty After Fifty at most of our care centers, and a lot of the programs there are focused on creating social connection for seniors, as well as helping them with exercise. EngAGE provides life-enhancing onsite programs in affordable senior and multigenerational housing classes, workshops and events in the arts, well-being, lifelong learning, community building and intergenerational connectivity in southern California, Oregon and Minnesota. They simply change the idea of aging by transforming retirement communities into vibrant centers of life and social connection. EngAGE tries to model retirement like going to College. They are both new phases of life, where we can utilize our free time to better ourselves, continue to grow and become something new each day if we choose. 14 steps for reducing isolation from A Place for Mom Here are 14 anti-isolation steps. 1. Make Transportation Available 2. Promote Sense of Purpose 3. Encourage Religious Seniors to Maintain Attendance at their Places of Worship 4. Give a Senior Something to Take Care Of 5. Encourage a Positive Body Image 6. Encourage Hearing and Vision Tests 7. Make Adaptive Technologies Available 8. Notify Neighbors 9. Encourage Dining with Others 10. Address Incontinence Issues 11. Give a Hug 12. Give Extra Support to Seniors Who Have Recently Lost a Spouse 13. Identification of Socially Isolated Seniors by Public Health Professionals 14. Help Out a Caregiver in Your Life State Sen. Len Suzio, R-Meriden, is critizing Connecticuts Public Utilities Regulatory Authority for failing to take adequate action to protect consumers from a billing problem involving Eversource Energy and The United Illuminating Co. Suzio called PURAs commissioners toothless watchdogs, after the regulatory agency issued a draft ruling requiring that minor changes be made to customers bills. PURA had agreed to review the billing issue in February after Suzio discovered that Eversource had been charging him at rate higher than what had been stated on previous bills. The dispute involves an August 2015 requirement that bills of residential electric customers include information concerning the per-kilowatt hour rate that will be charged in the next billing cycle. Suzio found he overpaid by $80 because he was being charged at the same, higher rate rather than a new, lower rate that in previous bills had been indicated would take effect with the next billing cycle. Neither Eversource, which is Suzios electricity distribution company, nor PURA officials have addressed Suzios claim that he was overcharged because his electric bills did not reflect the most current rate information. Suzio said he is concerned that thousands of other customers of both Eversource and UI may have also overpaid as a result of their bills not having accurate rate information. In its draft ruling Monday, PURA ordered UI and Eversource to display no information or not provided for the rate at which customers will be billed, in the event an electric supplier fails to provide that information in a timely manner. PURA ordered the utilities to make the changes on or before July1. A final decision by PURA in the case is expected to be issued March 28. Suzio said the regulatory agencys ruling was completely inadequate in terms of protecting the interests of ratepayers. I am not going to let them get away with this, Suzio said. These companies are required to provide accurate, timely information and they are being allowed to get away with doing business as usual. Suzio said he is considering taking the utilities to court or requesting the General Assemblys Energy and Technology Committee hold a hearing on the issue at which PURA officials would be asked to testify. This has been going on for more than two years and it has to stop, Suzio said. His legislative district includes Cheshire, Meriden, Middlfield and Middletown. Mitch Gross, an Eversource spokesman, said company officials are reviewing the ramifications of PURAs draft ruling. Eversource has 1.2 million customers in 149 Connecticut communities. We will be submitting comments to PURA regarding this in the next few days, Gross said. Ed Crowder, a spokesman with UI, said company officials believe that the onus is on (electric generation) suppliers to provide accurate rate information to those customers who choose their services. UI has about 333,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in New Haven, Bridgeport and 15 surrounding communities. The ongoing mistreatment of a 16-year-old transgender girl in state custody is raising serious questions about civil rights, human rights and Connecticuts approach to troubled children. Jane Doe has spent more than a week at the York Correctional Institute in solitary confinement, she says, 22 to 23 hours a day alone in a cell. Solitary confinement is an inhumane and counterproductive approach even for adults. To use it in the case of a child who does not belong in an adult prison in the first place is beyond alarming. The teen in question is under the care of the Connecticut Department of Children and Families. It got her transferred to York using an obscure state law allowing courts to transfer a dangerous minor in state custody to an adult prison even if they have not been charged as an adult with any crime. I can feel myself growing more and more isolated, frustrated, and feeling alone in my current isolation, Jane wrote to the court in a letter from prison. I need to be given treatment and services specific to my needs. I need to deal with the trauma Ive experienced in my life. This prison cannot do that for me. That trauma, according to CTMirror.org, has included being raped dozens of times by age 15, being sold for sex, beaten up and addicted to crack cocaine. These things happened despite first coming under care of DCF as a young child because her family members were incarcerated, sexually abusive or addicted to drugs. Transgender youth are also at exponentially greater risk of discrimination and bullying, physical and mental abuse, psychological issues and suicide. DCF says it cant deal with Jane Doe any longer, citing an extensive history of violence that has included stabbing another teen with a fork and 10 assaults on staff while at a childrens psychiatric facility run by the state. She is 16 years old, has had a horrific life, and DCF has failed repeatedly to protect her. Who could be surprised that she would have serious issues? So why is the state throwing this child away instead of pursuing intensive treatment? We strongly suspect that the answer lies with underlying bias against her gender identity. And in the process, the state of Connecticut appears to be violating an anti-discrimination law protecting transgender people that Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed in 2011. The state has been inconsistent with Jane Doe. Before being moved to the York womens adult prison, according to CTNewsJunkie.com, she was housed in female living sections at child detention centers and DCF facilities, or in isolation at male facilities. Legislators have questioned why DCF would not be treating her in a new locked facility for girls in Middletown that the agency specifically got funded to deal with similarly violent or challenging cases. Its past decisions to house Jane at boys facilities, and a loaded statement that placing her at the Middletown facility might endanger female staff, signal an underlying bias against Janes gender identity. Connecticuts Department of Correction has maintained a policy of placing transgender people according to their biological gender. In that environment, someone who identifies as female could be forced to look and behave like a male, leading to potentially severe psychological consequences. But Michael Lawlor, Malloys undersecretary for criminal justice, has acknowledged that the stated reasons for maintaining that stance are thin and likely conflict with the 2011 law. The Department of Correction probably could overcome challenges associated with determining who is legitimately transgender, he said, and Connecticut might change its policy. In the meantime, this child our child, because she is in the care of the state needs help, not isolation in a prison cell. If her civil rights and human rights can be violated in this way, it puts everyones rights at risk 3 1 of 3 Contributed / State Department of Public Health Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Contributed / State Department of Public Health Show More Show Less 3 of 3 There were more than a thousand visits to hospital emergency rooms across the state for suspected drug overdoses in the first two months of the year alone. Thats according to preliminary data released Tuesday by the state Department of Public Health, made available through its Syndromic Surveillance System, which gathers near real-time emergency department data on suspected drug overdoses. The use of syndromic surveillance to gather real-time overdose data will be an important tool for our state, local and community partners in our efforts to curb and reverse the opioid epidemic plaguing our state and nation, said DPH Commissioner Dr. Raul Pino in a news release. The real-time nature of the data will allow us to respond more quickly to changes in patterns of nonfatal and fatal opioid overdoses and to design, target, implement and monitor more effective interventions to break the cycle of overdose and death and curtail opioid addiction in Connecticut. MILFORD Connecticut has passed the peak of flu season, but remains classified geographically as widespread, according to a report by city Health Director Deepa Joseph to the citys Board of Health. The report is part of the boards monthly briefing, in which Joseph also reported that locally there were more cases than ever in recent memory, with 397 people in Milford testing positive this season, compared to fewer than 200 last year. The Milford Health Department will continue to offer the influenza vaccine through their April immunization clinic at the health department, Joseph wrote in her report. She said the Advisory Committee on Immunization practices has recommended providing the influenza vaccine into the spring months. Joseph also conveyed to the board influenza-related statistics for Connecticut, including: For the week ending March 10, there were 8,117 positive influenza cases reported, with 2,420 in New Haven County. 2,418 people were hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed cases. There were 119 influenza associated deaths, 88 associated with type A, 30 with type B and one of unknown type. 98 of those deaths were in patients 65 or older; 12 were ages 50-64; five were 25-49; one was between 19-24; and three were 18 or younger. In other business at Tuesdays meeting, Joseph announced: Board of Health chairwoman Constance Connie Young, a registered nurse, Ph.D. and retired professor, is among distinguished honorees being recognized in a statewide celebration of 65 nurses over 65 by the Connecticut League for Nursing. Young, whose legacy continues to grow, graduated from nursing school in 1959 and taught for more than 50 years. Young, who has received numerous prestigious awards over the years, was a trailblazer on many fronts who had a part in developing programs and opportunities for countless nursing students. For the spring semester, the Milford Health Department will host nursing students from Sacred Heart and Southern Connecticut State universities, who will work with school nurses at various grade levels. 336 out of 389 local food service establishments renewed their licenses by the last day in February deadline, with 53 outstanding. Board members mentioned the possibility in the future of fines for late renewals. As of the week ending March 16, the Health Department had received 257 general complaints from residents, 66 of them complaints of blight for the 2017-18 fiscal year so far. WEST HAVEN Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has submitted two proposed legislative bills that would raise the age of people protected by juvenile and youthful offender status from 18 to 21, he announced Tuesday at the University of New Haven. The proposals are part of a broader effort to steer young people out of the prison system and smooth the way for them to better recover from youthful mistakes that might otherwise have a lasting, negative effect on their lives, Malloy said at a news conference in the entry hall of the Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science. The bottom line is, young people make mistakes, Malloy said. Treating them as adults in the criminal justice system is a disservice to them and to our society, impedes their potential, and opens them up to a life of crime instead of a life of learning. Through this legislation, were offering our young people who have made mistakes a greater chance at a decent and productive life, he said. We know that if we can avoid exposing young adults who have committed less serious crimes to the adult criminal justice system, the less likely they are to reoffend or ultimately become incarcerated, Malloy said. The first bill, known as raise the age, expands the age of the juvenile justice systems jurisdiction up to age 21 by July 2021, Malloy said. It would create a new category within the jurisdiction of the juvenile justice system for individuals between the ages of 18 and 20, called young adults. Young adults would fall under juvenile justice jurisdiction in most circumstances, and, where appropriate, would benefit from the protections and services provided by the states juvenile justice system. The second bill would expand youthful offender status from low-risk teenagers up to age 17 to adults up to age 21, keeping their names out of the press and online data bases of pending cases. Under current law, certain low-risk teens 17 and younger who are transferred to adult court have the opportunity to plead guilty to the charge of being a youthful offender instead of to the original charge. The purpose would be to prevent more people from having permanent and life-altering consequences from impulsive and reckless behavior typical of their age group, according to a news release the governors office issued. Youthful offender status is not now available, and would not be available, to individuals charged with the most serious crimes, including Class A felonies, sexual assault and rape, Malloy said. Both bills are scheduled to receive public hearings in the General Assemblys Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Malloy was joined by University of New Haven President Steven H. Kaplan; William Carbone, director of the universitys Tow Youth Justice Institute; Department of Correction Commissioner Scott Semple; Suffolk County, Mass. Sheriff Steven W. Tompkins; and Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance Executive Director Abby Anderson. Kaplan said the youth justice system in Connecticut has become a national model and the reforms that have been instituted under the governors leadership over the past eight years are truly extraordinary. We have seen unparalleled decreases in youth incarceration, including the upcoming closure of the Connecticut Juvenile Training School in Middletown on July 1, Kaplan said. Semple thanked Malloy for his leadership and said that because of that leadership, the states youth who are involved in the criminal justice system have a better chance than ever to learn from their transgressions and become productive citizens, rather than career criminals. We need to give our young citizens every possible chance to succeed, not to let a youthful indiscretion ruin the promise of ones future, he said. Tompkins said that we cannot as a nation continue to throw away people and put them behind bars because they may have had a youthful indiscretion. Many young people who are now incarcerated might be better served being treated for mental health or substance abuse issues, he said. Emerging adults need specialized guidance and strong social networks to support them both behind the walls and in their communities, Tompkins said. While they must be held accountable, clearly we need to do so in a more rehabilitative and individualized system. Anderson said that while many positive steps have taken place under Malloys leadership, its a system that still requires significant changes to actually be just and to keep our community safe. The governors proposed changes are good for public safety, for the states budget and for young people and their communities, Anderson said. Putin, getting a sense of Trumps soul. Photo: Mikhail Klimentyev/Mikhail Klimentyev/TASS After Russian president Vladimir Putin surprised absolutely no one by winning reelection on Sunday, the White House said there were no plans to congratulate him on the victory (which involved reports of ballot-stuffing and his biggest rival being barred from the ballot). Yet just one day later, President Trump kicked off what he described as a very good call with Putin by commending him on his election win. According to the Washington Post, Trump did this despite his national security advisers inserting a warning in his briefing materials, written in all capital letters: DO NOT CONGRATULATE. Trump also ignored instructions to condemn the recent poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain, which runs the risk of further angering London officials, who want their allies to denounce the attack. Trump mentioned to reporters that he and Putin will probably be meeting in the not-too-distant future, though White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said nothing is planned. Trumps move drew sharp criticism from Senator John McCain, and the many other Twitter users who suspect there might be something fishy about his relationship with Russia. An American president does not lead the Free World by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections. And by doing so with Vladimir Putin, President Trump insulted every Russian citizen who was denied the right to vote in a free and fair election. https://t.co/lcQTBi7CA1 John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) March 20, 2018 But thats just one explanation for Trumps decision to congratulate Putin. Here are some other possibilities. Trump Didnt Bother to Read His Notes Several officials told the Post that they provided Trump with talking points written on handwritten notecards for his chat with Putin, as is customary for calls with foreign leaders. They noted that rather than ignoring their advice, its possible Trump never read it. Two people familiar with the notecards acknowledged that they included instructions not to congratulate Putin. But a senior White House official emphasized that national security adviser H.R. McMaster did not mention the issue during a telephone briefing with the president, who was in the White House residence ahead of and during his conversation with Putin. It was not clear whether Trump read the notes, administration officials said. Trump Has Given Up on the Written Word Altogether Last month the Post reported that even bullet-point- and picture-filled briefing documents were proving too much for Trump, so hes opted to rely on an oral briefing of select intelligence issues. That may explain one officials odd claim that while the Putin notecards exist, Trump was only briefed verbally. Per the New York Times: A second official, however, said that while Mr. Trumps briefing cards did contain those suggestions, he spoke to his aides by phone and never saw the cards. Why Should Trump Trust His Disloyal National Security Advisers Anyway? Just because a staffer writes DO NOT CONGRATULATE on a card doesnt mean the president has to take that advice and going forward, Trump will probably be even less likely to do so. This is not going to be a popular opinion, but leaking the notes between the president and his advisers, no matter how revealing they are of the presidents behavior, I would argue represents a breach of trust between the president and his advisers. https://t.co/NBwUF8bBxa Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) March 21, 2018 None of that is relevant to this point. The president has the right to ignore his advisers, however stupid that may be. The advisers do not have a right to retaliate by leaking their communications with him https://t.co/1Eex2hnbgk Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) March 21, 2018 Russias Election May Have Been a Sham, But We Dont Have to Be Rude About It Sarah Huckabee Sanders noted that the Trump administration just imposed sanctions on Russia for U.S. election meddling and cyberattacks, and joined France and Germany in formally condemning the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. She painted Trumps decision to take a friendlier stance in his personal interactions with Putin as a strategic choice. Weve been very clear in the actions that weve taken that were going to be tough on Russia, particularly when it comes to areas that we feel where theyve stepped out of place, Sanders said. Weve placed tough sanctions on Russia and a number of other things where we have shown exactly what our position is. She emphasized, however, that Trump is determined to establish a working relationship with Putin to tackle global challenges, including confronting North Koreas nuclear weapons program. Who Are We to Criticize Another Countrys Election? When asked if the Trump administration thinks Russias election was free and fair, Sanders said the White House is focused on U.S. elections. We dont get to dictate how other countries operate, Sanders responded. What we do know is that Putin has been elected in their country, and thats not something that we can dictate to them, how they operate. We can only focus on the freeness and fairness of elections in our country. But, to be clear, the investigation into what went down during the 2016 U.S. presidential election is totally bogus. Per the Times: Echoing the president, [Sanders] went on to rail against the investigation of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into links between the Trump campaign and Russia. To pretend like going through this absurd process for over a year would not bring frustration seems a little bit ridiculous, she said. All the Other Countries Are Doing It Sanders noted that other foreign leaders, like French president Emannuel Macron and German chancellor Angela Merkel, congratulated Putin too. Thats technically true, but those calls sound far more awkward. Macron pressed Putin on Skripals poisoning, and only wished success to Russia and the Russian people, rather than Putin personally. Merkels office said she told Putin: Today, it is more important than ever to continue the dialogue with one another and to foster relations between our states and peoples. Would You Believe That This Is All Obamas Fault? Many pointed out that Barack Obama congratulated Putin on his 2012 election victory, accusing those upset by Trumps friendly call of hypocrisy. Michael McFaul, the U.S. ambassador to Moscow at the time, said there was much internal debate about how to handle the situation, and Obama eventually went with a carefully worded statement that did commend Russians, but not Putin. Per the Times: After that election, the State Department issued a statement in which it said, The United States congratulates the Russian people on the completion of the presidential elections, and looks forward to working with the president-elect after the results are certified and he is sworn in. The language, Mr. McFaul said, was carefully chosen to applaud the Russian people for voting without praising Mr. Putin for winning. The statement also noted the reservations of outside observers about the partisan use of government resources, and procedural irregularities on Election Day, though it credited the Russian authorities for reforms after a widely criticized parliamentary election the previous December. Compared to Trumps Other Dictator Pals, Is Putin Really So Terrible? Sure, congratulating Putins election win is bad, but its not, like, congratulating Rodrigo Duterte on a dubious drug war thats killed thousandslevel bad. NEW HAVEN A proposed moratorium on shutting down any single-room occupancy units in the city has been revised, but an attorney for the Duncan Hotel said it is still illegal on several fronts and procedurally should have been readvertised because it is significantly different from the original document. The aldermanic Legislation Committee addressed the issue at a hearing Tuesday, which it voted to keep open and continue to its April 10 meeting. Attorney Caroline Kone also asked that alders Aaron Greenberg, D-8, and Richard Furlow, D-27, recuse themselves from participating in the discussion or voting on it as they had already made up their minds about supporting it. She later agreed, however, after reading the transcript of the City Plan Commissions meeting in January, that Furlow had not indicated his support. Kone previously and on Tuesday said the moratorium was proposed as a way to pressure the owners of the Duncan Hotel, which is being converted to a 72-room boutique hotel, to sign a neutrality agreement to recognize Unite HERE as representing its workers. The attorney, in her written testimony, said to the extent that members of the Legislation Committee are employed or hold a position in Unite HERE, such members, including Alders Marchand and Greenberg, must recuse themselves from participating in the Legislation Committee hearing to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. The original proposal of the committee was eviscerated in a report by the City Planning staff in mid-January, which said it violated the city charter and state statutes and failed to demonstrate there was a need for a moratorium, The point of a moratorium, for six to nine months, would be to keep the number of SROs stable in New Haven, while alders studied how to expand that number. Several alders on the committee Tuesday specifically said the proposal would not impact the Duncan, but Kone disagreed and read a list of reasons why the proposed zoning ordinance would not pass legal scrutiny in court. The Duncan relocated the 39 SRO tenants that were at the hotel before buying it and Kone said those people now live in better apartments at a cheaper cost. The Duncan has a full building permit, paying the city more than $200,000 for the $39 million project, and is quickly renovating the hotel. Kone said the Duncan had bedbugs and rats. It was not ideal, she said. The boards attorney, Keith Ainsworth, told the committee that it has the authority to enter into a temporary moratorium and found the proposed timeframe of six to nine months was not unreasonable. It is not an unusal tool. It is not a radical tool. It is used with regularity across the state of Connecticut, he said. He said it allows the board to take a breather while it contemplates policy changes without pressures from outside. Ainsworth said they could lift the moratorium earlier than the board establishes, if they had finished their work. Ainsworth, at the end of the hearing, told the alders that they did not have to recuse themselves as it wasnt certain how they would vote, according to Alder Rose Ferraro Santana, D-13. The revised proposed moratorium was not available until around 3 p.m., three hours before the hearing. Kone said this does not give the public time to prepare. To be fair, she said, it needs to be renoticed with a new hearing. A number of people testified against the moratorium as originally proposed. But they all agreed that a first step in finding a solution would be to expand the number of zones in which SROs are allowed. They currently are permitted only in three of 17 zones. Kate Walton, who has been involved extensively in community work fighting poverty, said the moratorium is not the right vehicle. Alder Evette Hamilton, D-24, brought Alison Parks to the hearing as an example of someone who cant find safe, affordable housing. She is one of dozens of tenants of 66 Norton St. who were forced to leave their homes earlier this month, when the city condemned the building as unsafe. Parks and her two teens continue to live in a hotel and she told the alders of her frustration. Hamilton said as the committee does its work, it has to consider the needs of all residents looking for affordable housing, not just those who could use an SRO. Attorney John Cirello said the proposed moratorium will bring legal challenges, which will not benefit anyone. Arnie Lehrer said that from a business perspective, the success of the hotel is to the benefit of the city. He said it pays taxes and brings a lot of people into town who in turn eat in the restaurants and shop here. He said it is the taxes of such businesses that provide the resources to build affordable housing. Attorney James Segaloff complimented the alders for acting from the heart when they talk about people in need. But he thought this proposed legislation brings up the whole concept of unintended consequences and legal challenges that would be clostly. He also worried about the diminished role of the City Plan Department when the alders propose zoning changes on their own. Kone said as a procedural matter, the board cannot consider the proposal because the City Plan Commission did not make a finding of consistency between the proposed SRO moratorium and the citys Plan of Development, Vision 2025. She said the moratorium is also not resonably related to the goal of preserving SROs, but rather is discriminatorily directed to one property owner the Ducan Hotel. Kone said there is no justification for a moratorium as there are only five entitites that provide this service and none have indicated that they want to convert their properties to a new use. She described them as mom-and-pop places. Also, she said the YMCA has told several people that it has no plans to change its model of housing services, nor could it under the 10-year funding restrictions which encumber its building. Kone said the lack of definitions in he ordinance is confusing and threatens hotels with a loss of their license if they had a guest stay a month, but then rented the room to a short-term client. The question is does that constitute a conversion from an SRO under the proposal? She said the language is not clear on building permits needed by hotels after they might open their doors to long-term tenants in an emergency situation, which is happening now with the situation at 66 Norton St. and did happen at Church Street South. Kone asked that references to hotels and motels be stricken from the proposal. Furlow said the city has a serious problem with homelessness, from disenfranchised young people to older individuals. It is mandatory that our Board of Alders steps up and figure out a solution to provide affordable housing for our residents in New Haven, Furlow said. The winters fourth noreaster in as many weeks had many Connecticut residents asking, Is that all there is? The storm, which had been forecast to drop between six inches and a foot of snow across much of Connecticut, didnt really begin in earnest until after the start of the evening rush hour. And in some places, as darkness fell, snow wasnt even sticking to the ground. But emergency management and public works officials in communities around the New Haven area were determined not to let down their guard, insisting that the worst was yet to come. Catherine Avalone/Hearst Connecticut Media The National Weather Service has a winter storm warning through 6 a.m. Thursday. NBC Connecticut Chief Meteorologist Ryan Hanrahan said Wednesday evening that the stations weather team, which had been predicting 6 to 12 inches in the run-up to the storm, had revised its estimates for the New Haven area to 3 to 6 inches. Richard Fontana, New Havens deputy director of emergency operations, told the citys department heads, late Wednesday afternoon that he was still expecting between 3 and 7 inches of snow to fall before midnight, with another 4 to 8 inches expected to fall by Thursday morning. We can not fall asleep at the wheel, Fontana said. Thats not how we do business. New Haven officials had 55 plows at their disposal to clear the citys streets, Fontana said. Independent contractors were part of that total and werent brought to work until after 4 p.m. in an effort to avoid piling up overtime, he said. We havent gone beyond out budget yet, but were right up against it, Fontana said. The town of Cheshire had already gone well beyond the amount of money it had budget for snow removal and road treatments this winter before the storm even started. George Noewatne, the towns director of public works, said Cheshire officials had budgeted $335,000 for snow removal for the winter and were about $160,000 over that amount headed into Wednesdays storm. The longer the storm takes to arrive, the harder it makes it for us to plan, Noewatne said. You obviously want to pre-treat the roads before the storm arrives. But at the same time, you dont want to use too much of the stuff too soon. Cheshires public works department had 14 dump trucks with plows and five or six pick up tricks equipped for plowing during the storm. Connecticuts Department of Transportation had 634 plow trucks and 200 private contractors at its disposal for the storm. The agency has roughly 50 satellite facilities throughout the state. DOT also had 17 industrial/loader-mounted snowblowers, each capable of moving 1,500 tons of snow per hour, according to a statement released by agency. Connecticuts two major utilities also took the storm equally seriously. Both the United Illuminating Co. and Eversource Energy treated the noreaster as a Class 5 storm. For Orange-based UI, that meant that utility officials were expecting between 5,000 and 10,000 customer outages across the companys 17-town service territory in New Haven, Bridgeport and surrounding. Mitch Gross, an Eversource spokesman, said based on that classification, the utility projects that as many as 10 percent of its 1.2 million customers are expected to have lost power at some point during the storm. The amount of wind that came with the storm is likely to have an impact on power outage levels. Fontana said New Haven officials were expecting sustained winds of up to 25 mph with gusts of up to 35 mph. Even though the storm was slow in getting started, it had a significant impact on activity levels at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks. Alisa Sisic, a spokeswoman for the Connecticut Airport Authority, said that as of 4 p.m. 40 percent of the arrivals and departures from Bradley had been canceled. Tweed New Haven Regional Airport remained open Wednesday for general aviation flights, although all of its American Eagle commercial flights to and from Philadelphia were canceled for Wednesday and early Thursday. As of now, we do have snow coming down, but its not of much intensity and its not really sticking to the ground. So were open, said Tweed Assistant Manager Felipe Suriel late Wednesday afternoon. But American canceled a lot of the flights due to the weather in Philly and as of late Wednesday afternoon, the first commercial flight in was expected to be the one from Philadelphia that lands at 11:54 a.m. Thursday, Suriel said. The first flight out from Tweed is scheduled to take off at 1:06 p.m. Thursday. Many school systems across the New Haven area hedged their bets, electing to use a combination of delayed openings and early dismissals rather than using another snow day that would have to be made up before the end of the school year. Even though many Connecticut residents have expressed frustration over a snow storm forecast for the second day of spring, some people were taking the day in stride. There was no pre-storm rush at the Woodbridge True Value hardware store. Chris Scandone, the assistant manager, said people seemed to have their fill of winter, or at least didnt want to buy a new shovel in March. Bags of potting soil and compost sat outside the store next to snowblowers. Shovels and seeds for spring gardens shared space inside, where metal rakes had sold out. Were kind of hoping for spring, Scandone said. If all the storms happened last month, we would have sold a ton of stuff. The unpredictable weather during this change of created a good deal of uncertainty in how best to stock the shelves, he said. What do you do about it? Do you bring out the spring stuff? he said Its spring, right? The Moffitt Mansion was built in 1904 in San Francisco by William Knowles. Today, the 5,728-square-foot abode enjoys a Belvedere address. How did this mansion start life on SF's Broadway Street and end up on 8 West Shore Road in Belvedere? Stats The home is a grand one: four beds, four and a half baths, gleaming wood floors (under carpet; you can see them in the old photos), vaulted ceilings, and a sparking swimming pool. Period details reflecting the early 1900s birthdate of this mansion include hand-wrought iron, ornate plasterwork and moldings, six fireplaces, and a cherry-paneled study. Two addresses Starting life at 1818 Broadway, this home survived the 1906 Earthquake only to be threatened 60 years later by a wrecking ball. Rather than allow Moffitt Mansion to be destroyed to make way for an apartment complex, architect Norman Gilroy purchased the property with a unique solution in mind. "Gilroy cut the home in half with an ordinary chainsaw and had it moved from its Pacific Heights location by barge to its current location in Belvedere" Rod Hughes of Kimball Hughes Public Relations told SFGATE. Photos of the old location, the home split in two, the transport, the new location, as well as current day photos can be found in the gallery above. Want to be the next owner? This grand home is now on the market for the first time in decades. You can see the complete listing at the official 8 West Shore Road website here. Hazel Carter-Hattem with Alain Pinel Realtors has the listing. The price is still shrouded in mystery, but a quick comparative sale analysis puts market value around $5.5 million. Comparative sale reports generated by computers don't take into account history, and Moffitt House has more of that than most not every home can boast that it once stood in one city; was cut in half and shipped to another city; and is now whole again. Anna Marie Erwert writes from both the renter and new buyer perspective, having (finally) achieved both statuses. She focuses on national real estate trends, specializing in the San Francisco Bay Area and Pacific Northwest. Follow Anna on Twitter: @AnnaMarieErwert You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close Authorities investigate a Sunset Valley FedEx store linked to the bombings on March 20, 2018. Photo: SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP/Getty Images The bombers life is over but the bombings might not be. This was the message that authorities shared with the people of Austin, Texas, when they woke up Wednesday morning. For three weeks, the Lone Star States bastion of resilient weirdness had been terrorized by a series of bombings that left two people dead and five people wounded. But on Tuesday, federal agents scoured surveillance video from a FedEx store in the Austin suburb of Sunset Valley, from which the fifth and sixth bombs had been shipped. And that footage provided them with enough evidence to obtain a search warrant on 24-year-old Mark Anthony Conditt. The latter led them to store receipts revealing suspicious purchases and a Google search history that allegedly showed Conditt had been researching information relevant to a would-be mail bomber. BREAKING: Austin serial bombing suspect identified as 24-year-old Mark Anthony Conditt, according to two law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation pic.twitter.com/p7s2SR2La2 MSNBC (@MSNBC) March 21, 2018 Cell-phone data allowed authorities to track the suspect to a hotel in Round Rock, 20 miles outside of Austin. As police waited for reinforcements, the suspect pulled out of the hotel parking lot, according to authorities. A pursuit ensued. Conditt eventually pulled to the side of Interstate 35 in Round Rock and, as a SWAT team approached, detonated a bomb inside his car, killing himself and injuring one member of law enforcement. We believe this individual is responsible for all of the incidents in Austin, Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said at a press conference hours later. But Manley went on to note that authorities had not yet determined whether the bomber had accomplices nor whether he may have left behind as yet undiscovered explosives. We dont know where this suspect has spent his last 24 hours, Manley said, and therefore we need to remain vigilant to be sure no other packages have been left throughout the community. Austin has already been in a state of heightened vigilance since March 2, when the first bomb went off. Initially, it had seemed like the attacks might be racially motivated, but subsequent incidents appeared to target random individuals and suggested that the serial bomber was developing more sophisticated tactics. The first three attacks involved cardboard packages that were left on the victims doorsteps, but on Sunday two men were injured when they triggered a trip wire left on the side of the road, which was rigged to a device partially hidden by a For Sale sign. Then on Tuesday a package addressed to an Austin address exploded at a FedEx distribution center in Schertz, Texas, and the first unexploded package bomb was discovered at a FedEx facility near Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. On Tuesday night, it seemed the bomber might be changing methods yet again when an explosion was reported at a Goodwill store in the southern part of the city. One man in his 30s was injured and a nearby grocery store and shopping center were evacuated. However, police insisted the incident wasnt related to previous bombings, and hours later they revealed that it was caused by an artillery simulator, not a package bomb. Experts told the Washington Post Tuesday that it was unusual for a serial bomber to launch attacks this close together, and Mary Ellen OToole, a former FBI profiler, predicted that the compressed time frame would help investigators. When you see a serial offender increase their activity, hes bound to make mistakes and in his case a mistake could cost him fingers, it could kill him, or he could just become sloppy because hes so excited about what hes doing, she said. The motivation has probably evolved over the last two weeks. Now hes probably enjoying all of the attention and the feeling of omnipotence he has creating so much concern and fear. Although Xiaomi released Android 8.0 Oreo for the Mi A1 handset before the end of 2017 as they previously had promised, the first security patch of the new year arrives with a long delay. Even worse, the new firmware does not bring Android 8.1 or the latest security patch from Google, only packing last month's update and nothing else. Working For Notebookcheck Are you a techie who knows how to write? Then join our Team! English native speakers welcome! News Writer - Details here The Xiaomi Mi A1 might be a few months old, but it remains an excellent mid-range device thanks to the aggressive pricing policy and the good software support for a smartphone that can be easily acquired for around US$200. While it looks like the third Android 8.0 Oreo-based update for it arrived in India in the first days of the month, it took a while for the new firmware to reach Europe. My Xiaomi Mi A1 displayed the update notification last night, and since I never heard of the update's arrival in the area so far, it is rather safe to assume that this was the first wave. Just as the update the surfaced about three weeks ago in India, the size of the new firmware is 87.3 MB and there is nothing new about it in terms of features. Although it arrives in the second half of March, the update contains the security patches dated February 1. Downloading and installing the update worked fine, and now the new build number displayed in the About phone section of the Settings area is OPR1.170623.026.V9.5.4.0.ODHMIFA. While the security patch is dated February 1, the kernel details include the date of February 26, so it is possible for this update to include some minor tweaks and fixes that became available around a month ago. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. It wasnt me. Photo: Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson gave an ill-considered explanation for purchasing a $31,000 mahogany dining set on the taxpayer dime: It was all his wifes fault. Speaking publicly for the first time since details of the lavish, now-canceled purchase were revealed, Carson told a congressional oversight committee on Tuesday that he had asked Candy Carson to help him out with selecting new furniture, then gone back to focusing on his core duties, like helping President Trump try to gut his agency. I left it with my wife, he said. The next thing that I, quite frankly, heard about it was that this $31,000 table had been bought. Carson has come under fire for giving family members unprecedented sway at HUD, but apparently hes not above scapegoating them when his reputation is on the line. Carson also said that once he was made aware of the prohibitive dining-set cost, he nixed the purchase immediately. And he emphasized that he and his wife are both very thrifty people, by nature. If it were up to me I would decorate my office like a hospital waiting room, he said. Still, he maintained, the furniture needed replacing if only for safetys sake. He described a potentially dangerous office environment in which people were stuck by nails, and a chair had collapsed with someone sitting in it. (Everyone knows you cant find a safe dining-room table for anything under $15,000.) A whistleblower at HUD said that she had been demoted after reporting that the furniture exceeded the $5,000 legal cost limit. She was allegedly told that $5,000 will not even buy a decent chair. A HUD spokesman initially claimed that career staffers in charge of the building were to blame for the dining set, but internal emails told a very different story. Scott Pruitts habit of sitting in first class to avoid the wrath of apopleptic liberals is looking pretty good by comparison right now. 1. Investigators are putting thousands of packages under intense scrutiny across Texas and appealing for help from the public after a string of mysterious bombings in the state. All five were improvised devices hidden in packages. The latest detonated early Tuesday at a FedEx facility near San Antonio, above, leaving an employee with ringing in the ears. The authorities believe the sender shipped a second suspicious package, which was turned over to law enforcement. Both packages were addressed to Austin, where the previous blasts two of them lethal occurred. Heres a breakdown of each case. The fatal accident involving an autonomous vehicle operated by the ride-hailing service Uber has prompted one automaker to temporarily halt its testing of self-driving cars on public roads. The accident on Sunday night in Tempe, Ariz., prompted Uber to halt its tests on the streets of four cities: Tempe, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto. On Tuesday, Toyota Motor said that it, too, was suspending its tests of autonomous vehicles on public roads near its research center in Ann Arbor, Mich., and in the San Francisco area. Toyota has a fleet of test vehicles that can drive themselves, although engineers and safety drivers ride along to take control if necessary the same arrangement that was used in the Uber vehicle that fatally struck a pedestrian in Tempe. Weve told our drivers to take a couple of days off so we can assess the situation, said Rick Bourgoise, a Toyota spokesman. In nontheme news, I liked the sprinkling of Xs throughout the grid, and while the center felt a bit cramped with all those three-letter words, I enjoyed the long Downs that gave us: DESK SETS, IDIOT BOX, REST STOP and TAKE HOME. Tricky Clues 6A: Wordplay alert! The making the rounds part of the clue made me think of doctors in a hospital, but thats just what the constructor and editors want you to think. What other rounds do you know of? You can buy someone a round in a BAR, and the person in charge of making those rounds would be the bartender. Dont forget to tip your server. 19A: I was thinking about our web and app solvers for this one. The answer is Hawaii FIVE-O, and I hope you didnt type in a zero instead of the O. The show was always called Hawaii FIVE-OH, not FIVE-ZERO, at least in the original television series. The 2010 reboot, an alert reader has informed me, uses the zero. 45A: Tricky! Some might think that a Fig. in annual reports would be a number, but today its a person: the CEO of the company. 62A: PI DAY just passed. Did you celebrate with pie? 26D: LAILA Ali made her name as a professional boxer from 1999 2007, retiring undefeated with several female super middleweight titles, and an IWBF light heavyweight title. She has been on Dancing With the Stars, and she co-hosted the revival of American Gladiators, among other things. But yes, she is also the daughter of Muhammad Ali, who was known as The Greatest. No one wants soiled or limp bank notes, says Peter Balke, a senior policy adviser for De Nederlandsche Bank, the central bank of the Netherlands. Balkes work has nothing to do with money laundering, which is the bailiwick of law enforcement; for much of the last decade, he has studied how cash gets dirty and methods for keeping it cleaner. Globally, governments spend nearly $10 billion annually replacing grimy or crumpled cash (some half a billion euros are shredded each month for this reason). After Balke published research finding that peoples waxy skin oils are mainly to blame, he and his colleagues began investigating what could be done about it. To clean money, he says, you need to remove that built-up sebum. Bleach bank notes in the sun, Balke says. One scientist has suggested letting ultraviolet light do the work by laying out the cash on the central banks roof. (Wed rather keep it in the vault, Balke says.) Most bills will remain intact in the washer and dryer. But while a wash cycle may make your money look untainted, it nonetheless ruins the bills; hot water can damage security features, and detergents change the way cash reflects light, which currency-sorting machines detect. Banks shred washed money. At the microscopic level, because cash is so highly trafficked, it becomes a sort of palimpsest that records all the hands and back pockets and piggy banks it has passed through, accreting a kind of monetary microbiome. A study of $1 bills in New York identified a total of 397 bacterial species. Swiss researchers discovered that when they smeared bills with mucus from children with the flu, the virus lived for up to 12 days. Bank notes also retain evidence of our recreational habits. Ninety-five percent of the currency researchers tested from Washington showed traces of cocaine; in Macao, 98 percent contained ketamine. There is a cleaning technique that works without damaging your dollars. It requires highly pressurized and heated carbon dioxide. You basically dry-clean it, Balke says. After studying the method, the European Central Bank opted to use a sebum-repelling varnish on euros instead. Despite dozens of online tutorials on how to clean cash at home, Balke doesnt think you should bother: If you end up with a particularly nasty (or mangled) bill, most banks will let you exchange it. Les Payne, a fervid and fearless Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, columnist and editor for Newsday who helped pave the way for a generation of black journalists, died on Monday in Manhattan. He was 76. His death was confirmed by his son Jamal. Mr. Payne, who lived in Harlem, apparently had a heart attack and was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, his family said. Beginning in 1969, when he joined Newsday, the Long Island newspaper, Mr. Payne exposed inequality and racial injustice wherever he found it, whether it was apartheid in South Africa, illegally segregated schools in the American South or redlining by real estate agents in suburban New York. He was on the reportorial team that won a Pulitzer for public service in 1974 for a 33-part series, The Heroin Trail, which traced a narcotics scourge from its source in Turkey to the mean streets of America. Because there must be something very important in them that he wants to keep hidden. Maybe its just the embarrassment that he is not as rich as he claims, or, maybe, its something more fundamental like how dependent he is on Russian oligarchs for financing, so much so that Putin has leverage on him. Whatever the reason, though, when Trump saw he could get away with hiding them, he knew he could break any rule, tell any lie and violate any presidential norm and hes done just that. Putins turkey was even more serious. It was the shooting down of that Malaysian civilian airliner, Flight MH17, over Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people onboard. Remember the story? A Dutch-led international investigation relying on, among other things, 150,000 intercepted phone calls found that Putins proxies in eastern Ukraine had requested that Russia send them an SA-11 surface-to-air missile launcher. And it was trucked over the Russian border into Ukraine, where it shot down that Malaysian airliner (probably mistaking it for a Ukrainian military plane) and then was trucked back to Russia hours later. Putins military was up to its neck in this. Putin did not push the button on that missile, but he created the conditions for it to shoot down that plane and he walked away from it as if the plane were brought down by lightning, making up one implausible story after another. He got slapped on the wrist with a few sanctions, but his complicity faded away into a mist of baldfaced lies. Who wanted to confront Russia, with all its gas exports to Europe and all its oligarchs throwing money around London or buying condos in places like Trump Tower in New York? Putin surely also said to himself, Can you believe I got away with that? Why not poison a former Russian spy in London with a banned military nerve agent or perpetrate genocide in Syria? Whos going to stop me? Trump and Putin are cut from the same cloth. Their strategy is: keep pushing, keep grabbing, keep lying, keep denying, no matter how implausible the denials and never apologize. Because when you lie on an industrial scale, it overwhelms everyone else. Normal people just dont behave that way, and the sheer shamelessness eventually exhausts them. SAN FRANCISCO I have spent my entire life pushing for new protected areas in the worlds oceans. But a disturbing trend has convinced me that were protecting very little of real importance with our current approach. From Hawaii to Brazil to Britain, the establishment of large marine protected areas, thousands of square miles in size, is on the rise. These areas are set aside by governments to protect fisheries and ecosystems; human activities within them generally are managed or restricted. While these vast expanses of open ocean are important, their protection should not come before coastal waters are secured. But in some cases, thats what is happening. Near-shore waters have a greater diversity of species and face more immediate threats from energy extraction, tourism, development, habitat degradation and overfishing. If we leave these places at risk, were not really accomplishing the goal of protecting the seas. As the United States undertakes an alarming rollback in environmental protections, other countries are making news by safeguarding remote expanses in efforts to meet or even surpass commitments to the United Nations to protect 10 percent of marine areas by 2020. We should not continue applauding countries that are simply drawing a line around relatively empty waters where protections are neither essential nor most effective to meet a target. Instead we need to do the harder work of safeguarding the most threatened regions of the ocean the coastlines even if theyre smaller. FRONT PAGE A capsule summary for an article on Sunday about sexual harassment in the workplace misspelled the given name of the legal scholar who wrote Sexual Harassment of Working Women. She is Catharine A. MacKinnon, not Catherine. BUSINESS DAY An article on Tuesday about the appointment of the British designer Kim Jones as the new artistic director of Dior Homme misstated overall revenue last year at Christian Dior Couture. It was 2.23 billion euros, or $2.7 billion, not 43.7 billion. FOOD A Critics Notebook last Wednesday about a new style of casual Indian restaurants in Manhattan misspelled the given name of the chef at Old Monk. He is Navjot Arora, not Navjut. SCIENCE An article on Tuesday about a geneticist at Harvard Medical School whose team is retrieving DNA from ancient bones to trace the prehistoric migrations of our species misstated the given name of a mathematician. He is Nick Patterson, not Neil. Alan Dershowitz. Photo: John Lamparski/Getty Images Alan Dershowitz has carved out a role as Donald Trumps favorite legal mind, a position he has previously held for such figures as Claus von Bulow and O.J. Simpson. (The common thread among all these figures is not that they know they are completely innocent.) Last night, Dershowitz appeared on Lou Dobbss program to express his belief that the Mueller investigation should be dissolved. (Dobbs agreed, and proceeded to argue that Trump is entitled to subject the Department of Justice to his complete personal control, a point Dershowitz did not contest.) This morning, Trump, likely DVRing through last nights Fox News highlights, excitedly tweeted out paraphrased, poorly spelled excerpts of Dershowitzs commentary: Dershowitz was using his appearance with Dobbs to tease an argument he spells out at greater length in an op-ed in the Hill. The argument is worth analyzing in more detail for what it reveals about Trumps defense. You might think a lawyer as experienced and well-credentialed as Dershowitz could manage to put together a halfway plausible argument. Instead he has produced one that would not maintain enough superficial plausibility to sustain an episode of Matlock. What follows is the entire op-ed, interspersed with commentary. President Trump is right in saying that a special counsel should never have been appointed to investigate the so-called Russian connection. There was no evidence of any crime committed by the Trump administration. First of all, the special counsel is not investigating the Trump administration. He is investigating actions by Russia, the Trump campaign, and, secondarily, efforts by the Trump administration to obstruct the investigation into the latter two. Even though we dont yet have all the facts, there is already ample evidence of crimes committed by the Trump campaign. Trumps campaign manager, Paul Manafort, has been indicted for money laundering in relation to his long-standing business dealings with Russia, which included running a campaign to elect a pro-Russian president in another country. Manaforts partner, Rick Gates, has already pleaded guilty. Two other campaign aides, Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos, have pleaded guilty to lying about their contacts with Russia. And thats just the evidence presented so far in the form of indictments. There is already a lot of additional public information the Trump Tower meeting, Roger Stones pattern of statements suggesting Trumps campaign was receptive to Russian efforts on its behalf, which included illegal theft of Democratic emails. The remainder of Dershowitzs argument rests on the premise that Trumps campaign did nothing illegal. It is an extremely shaky foundation, to say the least. But there was plenty of evidence that Russian operatives had tried to interfere with the 2016 presidential election, and perhaps other elections, in the hope of destabilizing democracy. Dershowitz is defining the Russian goal as destabilizing democracy, which is what Trump also claims. But American intelligence has concluded its goal was not only to destabilize democracy but to help Trump win. Yet, appointing a special counsel to look for crimes, behind the closed doors of a grand jury, was precisely the wrong way to address this ongoing challenge to our democracy. The right way would have been (and still is) to appoint a nonpartisan investigative commission, such as the one appointed following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, to conduct a broad and open investigation of the Russian involvement in our elections. This is what other democracies, such as Great Britain and Israel, do in response to systemic problems. The virtue of such a commission is precisely the nonpartisan credibility of its objective experts, who have no political stake in the outcome. Muellers investigation is nonpartisan, but Trump and his allies have relentlessly sought to smear it as partisan. Such a commission could have informed the American public of what Russia did and how to prevent it from doing it again. It would not seek partisan benefit from its findings, the way congressional committees invariably do. Nor would it be searching for crimes in an effort to criminalize political sins, the way special counsels do to justify their existence and budget. Its only job would be to gather information and make recommendations. Note what Dershowitz is saying here: Nobody should be investigating any crimes that Trumps campaign may have committed, nor any obstruction of justice Trumps administration may have committed to to prevent that investigation. Russians should be the only target. The vice of a special counsel is that he is supposed to find crimes, and if he comes up empty-handed, after spending lots of taxpayer money, then he is deemed a failure. It is true that a special counsel could be swayed by an incentive to find a crime even if one does not exist. That would seem to be less of a concern given that Mueller has already found actual crimes. If he cant charge the designated target in this case, the president he must at least charge some of those close to the target, even if it is for crimes unrelated to the special counsels core mandate. By indicting these low-hanging fruits, he shows that he is trying. Maybe those lesser defendants will flip and sing against higher-ups, but the problem is that the pressure to sing may cause certain defendants to compose, meaning make up or enhance evidence in order to get a better deal for themselves. Its also true that a special counsel could pressure lesser defendants into making up crimes by higher-ups. But any prosecutor can do this. Dershowitz is making a case against the way prosecutors charge terrorist cells or Mafia families or two guys who knock over a liquor store. In this case, the appointment of a special counsel has done more harm than good. It has politicized our justice system beyond repair. Note that Dershowitz began by describing a hypothetical scenario, but now has switched over to using language has done implying that this hypothetical is reality. The FBI deputy director has been fired for leaking and lying. Wait a second. Yes, Andrew McCabe was fired for allegedly leaking and lying. But the putative cause of his termination was related to the FBIs investigation of Hillary Clinton. Supposedly the behavior that caused McCabes firing has nothing to do with the Russia investigation at all. But Dershowitz is saying the firing was caused by the appointment of a special counsel. So by Dershowitzs own account here, Trump or his allies engineered the firing of an FBI agent in order to discredit him as a witness in the Russia investigation! And Dershowitz concludes that this just shows why we need to close down the Russia investigation! His testimony appears to be in conflict with that of the former FBI director as to whether the leaks were authorized. Messages by high-ranking FBI agents suggest strong bias against Trump. Those agents also had a strong bias against Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, and seemed most in tune with John Kasich. In any case, they recused themselves from the investigation, so their view is not relevant. A tweet by the former CIA director reveals equally strong negative views of the president. Perhaps these revelations prove nothing more than that law enforcement and national security officials are human and hold political views like everyone else. Or maybe the former CIA director, who is also not involved in any way in the special counsels investigation, has developed strongly anti-Trump views because he has seen some intelligence indicating Trump has done some really bad things. But these views are not supposed to influence their decisions. In our age of hyperpartisanship, the public has understandably lost confidence in the ability and willingness of our leaders to separate their political views from their law enforcement decisions. This is not all attributable to the appointment of the special counsel, but the criminalization of political differences on both sides of the aisle has certainly contributed to the atmosphere of distrust in our justice system. The public has lost faith in the leadership of the Justice Department and the FBI. In fact, the public as a whole does still trust the FBI. Yes, Trump has helped drive down trust through his relentless attacks on the agency. Dershowitzs response is to amplify those attacks and then insist the FBI cant investigate Trump because people dont trust it. They dont trust congressional investigative committees. They dont know whom to believe when they hear conflicting accounts. There are leaks galore followed by denials of leaks. Its a total mess. Muellers investigation has in fact been almost completely free of leaks. And what do we have to show for it? Just a handful of low-level indictments based largely on alleged crimes that are either unrelated or only marginally related to Russias attempt to influence our presidential election in 2016. The low-level indictments include the person who managed Trumps campaign and the former director of the National Security Council. So far. Its not too late to try to repair some of the damage done. Let Congress now appoint a nonpartisan commission to conduct a transparent investigation of Russias efforts to influence our elections. Let the special counsel suspend his investigation until the nonpartisan commission issues its report. Theres no reason why a nonpartisan commission has to mean stopping Muellers investigation. You could have both. In fact, it is Trumps critics who have proposed a commission like the one Dershowitz is advocating, and Trumps allies who have blocked it. Dershowitz does not mention that. If the report identifies crimes and criminals, there will be time enough to indict and prosecute. Right now, we need the nonpartisan truth, because we arent getting it from the special counsel. Like almost every high-level defense of Trump, Dershowitz ignores the obvious reality that Trump believes law enforcement should be personally loyal to him, ignoring any crimes he and his friends may have committed while ruthlessly prosecuting his adversaries. This ought to be the primary context for any analysis of Trumps standoff with the FBI, but instead Dershowitz wishes it away, and reimagines Trump as an innocent man hounded by a perfidious and unethical prosecutor. Is Dershowitz auditioning for a role as Trumps lawyer? If so, and if this is the best case Dershowitz can make, Trump is in a lot of trouble. Mr. Stamos had successfully campaigned for Yahoo to encrypt the data flowing through its data centers. But when he pushed for end-to-end encryption which ensures that only the parties in a conversation can see what is being said, leaving even Yahoo unable to read it Ms. Mayer and other executives scoffed. Some of Mr. Stamoss other security proposals at Yahoo, such as resetting customers passwords after a breach, were rejected because the added inconvenience might encourage Yahoo customers to leave. By then, Mr. Stamos had drawn the notice of Facebook executives. Some at the social network worried aloud whether he was too much of a firebrand to join the social network, according to three current and former Facebook employees who declined to be named because of nondisclosure agreements. But others argued that his activism was a benefit for the company. Mr. Stamos joined Facebook in June 2015. From the start, the current and former employees said, he got off on the wrong foot with some executives, including Ms. Sandberg, over how best to police the platform. Facebook was increasingly grappling with cyberattacks from countries like Iran, whose hackers were caught trying to break into the accounts of State Department employees, and from Russia, the current and former employees said. In a statement on Monday, Mr. Stamos said his relationship with Ms. Sandberg was productive. After a breach of the Democratic National Committee in June 2016, Mr. Stamos pulled together a team to investigate Russian interference on Facebook. The findings pit him against executives in the companys legal and communications groups. While Mr. Stamos argued to disclose more, others said that by proactively disclosing what they had found, Facebook had become a target of further public ire, according to seven current and former Facebook employees. Five minutes before her close friend Lynda Cruz died last November, Rocxanne Deschamps stood by her hospital bed and promised to take care of Ms. Cruzs two boys, who were also there to say their goodbyes. Then she moved the brothers into the mobile home park where she was living in South Florida. One of them, Nikolas Cruz, would be out of the home in less than a month. Ms. Deschamps said on Tuesday that she had called 911 on him three times once after finding a receipt for a gun and bullets in Mr. Cruzs room, again after finding an empty gun box, and the third time after he punched holes in the wall and got into a fight with her son. Finally, she gave Mr. Cruz an ultimatum: lose the guns, or leave the home. He chose the latter. I did everything I could to warn law enforcement about what could happen, Ms. Deschamps, 42, said on Tuesday, the first public account she has given since the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in which Mr. Cruz is accused of killing 17 people in one of the worst school shootings in American history. I wanted to protect not only my own children, but also anyone else who might be at risk of being harmed, she said. I also wanted to protect Nikolas from himself. Arthur Jones, a Holocaust denier described as a Nazi by the Illinois Republican Party, won the Republican primary on Tuesday in the states Third Congressional District, a heavily Democratic district that includes part of Chicago and its suburbs, according to The Associated Press. Mr. Jones, 70, unsuccessfully sought the nomination five times before, and his victory on Tuesday was a foregone conclusion after the Republican Party failed to draft another candidate to enter the race against him. Even if only myself and my wife voted for me, Id win the primary because the Republican Party screwed up big time, Mr. Jones said in an interview. The Illinois Republican Party has sought to distance itself from Mr. Jones in recent weeks, blanketing the district with campaign fliers and robocalls urging voters to stop Illinois Nazis, according to a robocall script provided by the party. Mr. Jones said he had received three robocalls himself. CHICAGO The race for Illinois governor has come down to this: the multimillionaire versus the billionaire. Gov. Bruce Rauner, a private-equity executive seeking a second term in office, prevailed in a tough battle for the Republican nomination on Tuesday, while J.B. Pritzker, a billionaire philanthropist and venture capitalist from a prominent Chicago family, won the Democratic nomination for governor, according to the Associated Press. Their victories promise a contest that will be fiercely fought and dominated by big money, with each candidate controlling tremendous sums of personal wealth to spend on his campaign. The two men have already raised more than $150 million, on track to become one of the most expensive governors races in history. In the states most closely watched congressional primary, the longtime Chicago-area Representative Daniel Lipinski narrowly defeated a challenger from the left, Marie Newman, according to the A.P. The race became something of a proxy between moderate and progressive Democrats. SYDNEY, Australia James Packer, a colorful Australian billionaire who has found himself embroiled in a corruption scandal involving Israels prime minister, has resigned as a director of Crown Resorts, the casino company that is a source of much of his wealth. In a statement, Crown cited personal reasons for his departure without giving further details. But Consolidated Press Holdings, an investment company owned and controlled by Mr. Packer, said in a statement that Mr. Packer is suffering from mental health issues. At this time, the company said, he intends to step back from all commitments. Mr. Packer is one of Australias richest men, a globe-trotting billionaire who had been engaged to Mariah Carey, formed a film-production company with Brett Ratner in Hollywood and most recently became entangled in a corruption investigation involving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. According to the police in Israel, expensive cigars, jewelry and pink champagne flowed into the prime ministers official Jerusalem residence and one of the patrons was Mr. Packer, who has said he was only giving Mr. Netanyahu what he demanded. LONDON Last fall, President Vladimir V. Putin summoned a Kremlin television crew to his residence for a ceremony marking the destruction of Russias last declared stocks of chemical weapons. The occasion called for a touch of theater: Shells were dismantled on camera, decorated with flowery Cyrillic script reading, Farewell, chemical weapons! Mr. Putin spoke proudly of Russias status as a peacemaker, and derided the United States for lagging behind. An official from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the global body that monitors agreements to whittle down stockpiles, stood by, beaming. Just six months later, Russia has been accused of secretly producing a strain of lethal nerve agents for years, in what would be a grave violation of its international commitments. A team of inspectors from the global watchdog organization the same agency that celebrated with Mr. Putin last September this week joined the investigation into the poisoning of Sergei V. Skripal, a former Russian spy, and his daughter, who were found unresponsive in the English city of Salisbury on March 4. The campus of Columbia University is dotted with monuments to illustrious alumni and high-minded ideals. But on a sunny afternoon earlier this week, about two dozen people gathered around the sundial in its central plaza to pay tribute to a momentous event that has gone uncommemorated in stone. Horam expecta veniet await the hour, it shall come, Frank Guridy, an associate professor of history at the university, proclaimed, reading a Latin inscription on the sundial. I think its sort of poetic that things began here. Things is an understatement for what began at Columbia around noon on April 23, 1968, when students, united by opposition to plans to build a university gym in a nearby public park and by Columbias involvement in weapons research, converged on that spot. A week later, nearly a thousand activists had occupied five buildings (including the presidents office), taken the dean hostage and shut down the campus, before being removed by the police in a violent melee that ended with one of the largest mass arrests in New York City history. Anniversaries of Columbia 1968 tend to arrive like a classic rock hit, replayed nostalgically by those who were there. But its a story, Professor Guridy told the group of current students and former strikers who had gathered for a walking tour of sites relating to the protests, that is only now, as the 50th anniversary approaches, being fully understood. MILAN In the prelude to the Italian elections this month, the far-right League party did not distinguish itself for rhetorical subtlety. Its leader, Matteo Salvini, called Islam incompatible with our values, rights and freedoms. He characterized the single European currency as a crime against humanity. And the senior League politician Attilio Fontana, after deploring that the white race could be wiped out in Italy, went on to win the presidency of Lombardy, the wealthy northern region that includes this fashionable city, in a landslide. But pull up the Leagues campaign manifesto, dig past the strident anti-immigration and anti-Muslim rhetoric, and suddenly the tone turns more poetic. Italy and its thousand cultures should be the Silicon Valley of cultural heritage, it sings, one of many flourishes among the partys proposals for art institutions, churches and heritage sites. Unlike the Leagues American cousins Mr. Salvini is an avowed fan of President Trump these Italian populists like to present themselves as defenders of public cultural institutions, and their Make Italy Great Again vision highlights museums as much as migration policy. For Mr. Salvinis party, the nationalist project goes right through the history of art. They are not the first right-wingers to make promises about Italian high culture. A few days after the March 4 elections, as the papers here weighed the likelihood of a populist governing coalition or a new poll, I visited two major exhibitions examining how art and politics informed each other at previous turning points in Italys history: in the 1920s and 30s, on view at Fondazione Prada in Milan; and in the 50s and 60s, at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. Both reaffirmed that questions of culture who defines what it is, and who administers it have never been far from the surface of Italian political life. Before the designer Cynthia Rowley built her international fashion brand, she studied fine art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Sitting in the living room of the West Village townhouse she shares with her husband, Bill Powers, and their two teenage daughters, Ms. Rowley pointed to an Elizabeth Peyton portrait of a teenage Queen Elizabeth on the wall. I love that drawing because it feels like something I would have hoped to do when I was in art school, she said. That drawing was in Peytons first show in 1991 at the Chelsea Hotel, which feels meaningful to me, said Mr. Powers, a former freelance journalist who for the last decade has run Half Gallery in Manhattan, which focuses on emerging artists. The couples double-height living room is filled with art as well as Ms. Rowleys colorful new surfboard, which could read as sculpture, and a floating installation of silver balloons spelling LOL. We keep a helium tank in the basement, she said. A large Henry Taylor figurative painting hangs over the purple plush horseshoe-shaped couch. A wall of open shelving is studded with glitter paintings by Chris Martin, a Dana Schutz Peeping Tom canvas and a Taylor Mead work reading, I want to take all my psychiatry out on you! (My moms a shrink, Mr. Powers noted.) LONDON The American artist Joan Jonas stood before an enthusiastic audience in London late on Friday and re-enacted excerpts from some of her performances. Accompanied by the jazz pianist Jason Moran, she ran around with a bucket, painting a giant snake on the floor, tooted a horn and sounded a succession of bells, as video images scrolled across a large screen. It was a strange and entrancing ritual. Four months shy of her 82nd birthday, Ms. Jonas has her biggest museum show yet: a career survey at Tate Modern in the British capital. As museums increasingly branch out into performance and film, the artist is finally reaching mainstream audiences and perplexing one or two critics along the way. In an interview before the exhibitions opening, Ms. Jonas was timid and sometimes self-critical performance was a way of masking shyness, she explained despite a lifetime of achievements, including representing the United States at the 2015 Venice Biennale. Her 8-year-old poodle, Ozu, named after the Japanese filmmaker, snoozed beside her. One of Ms. Jonass films, Beautiful Dog (2014), was made with a camera mounted on his collar. Governor Bruce Rauner narrowly avoided humiliation on Tuesday night. Photo: Abel Uribe/TNS via Getty Images Tuesdays Illinois primary offered one marquee congressional race that matched an old-fashioned Chicago machine pol against someone who better reflected the wave of the Democratic present and future. It also featured gubernatorial primaries in both parties, where two of the biggest spenders in the country faced energetic underdogs. Though there was considerable suspense in the early counting, it looks like the old-school Chicago Democrat, Representative Dan Lipinski, defeated progressive business consultant Marie Newman by an eyelash in the states Third Congressional District. Both candidates had some outside help from organizations on both sides of the abortion issue, though the incumbent may have benefited more from crossover voting by anti-abortion activists in this open primary state. Republicans in the Third District have the embarrassment of going into the general election with an open racist and Holocaust denier, Art Jones, carrying their banner. Jones ran unopposed in the GOP primary. On the Democratic side of the insanely expensive gubernatorial race, billionaire J.B. Pritzker handily dispatched progressive state legislator Daniel Biss and political scion Chris Kennedy, who neatly split the anti-Pritzker vote. Pritzker, heir to a family fortune that includes ownership of the Hyatt Hotel chain, has invested around $70 million into his campaign. On the Republican side, the AP called the race for incumbent Governor Bruce Rauner over conservative opponent Jeanne Ives. Despite putting $50 million of his own money into his campaign, it appears Rauner beat the underfunded Ives by a very small margin (there is still a bit of doubt about the final numbers because of vote-counting problems in Ivess home county, DuPage). Rauner clearly underestimated Ives, who made a lot of hay out of the pro-choice governors decision to sign legislation expanding public financing of abortions. The challenger also got a boost from devious ads from the Democratic Governors Association calling her too conservative for Illinois (an effort to help her against Rauner). A Prizker-Rauner general election is very likely to become the most expensive gubernatorial contest in U.S. history, and a nasty one as well. Pritzker will try to tie his Republican opponent to Donald Trump, while Rauner will make Pritzker out to be a puppet of state Democratic Party chairman and Illinois House speaker Mike Madigan, a figure nearly as unpopular as Trump. Pritzker leads in the early polling. In other contests, Emilys List had, as expected, a very successful evening in Democratic congressional primaries, with former Dick Durbin aide Betsy Dirksen Londrigan defeating Erik Jones in the 13th District (she will face incumbent Rodney Davis in November), and former Department of Health and Human Services official Lauren Underwood demolishing six opponents in the 14th District (Representative Randy Hultgren is her general election opponent). In the 10th District, where Republicans hope to reclaim a seat they lost to Democrat Brad Schneider in 2016, social conservative Doug Bennett and former AIPAC staffer Jeremy Wynes are locked in a close race with a handful of precincts still out. Finally, in the attorney generals race among Democrats, state legislator Kwame Raoul is holding a probably insurmountable lead over former governor Pat Quinn. While turnout was generally poor (as is usually the case in Illinois midterm elections) Democrats held a considerable turnout advantage that may matter in November. It looks like Rauner got about the same number of votes as second-place Democratic gubernatorial candidate Daniel Biss. BERKELEY, Calif. A few months ago, the composer Jimmy Lopez came to the University of California, Berkeley, to hear firsthand the experiences of young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. He was hoping to talk to students as he prepared to create Dreamer, an oratorio designed to reflect the inspiration that fuels the experience of immigrants, and the challenges they face. No one showed up that day. The morning of his visit, word spread that a parked U.S. Customs and Border Protection vehicle had been spotted on campus. It may have been the first time that the composition of an oratorio the kind of grand choral work Bach, Handel and Haydn are all famous for was interrupted by an appearance of the border patrol. But this is no ordinary oratorio. The world has changed, and the immigration issue has become more urgent since the piece, with music by Mr. Lopez and a libretto by the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz, was first conceived a couple of years ago by Cal Performances, the universitys performing arts presenter. After President Trump was elected, he moved to end the Obama-era program that shields nearly 700,000 young immigrants, often called Dreamers, from deportation, leaving them in limbo while his administration, Congress and the courts debate their fates. Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous nights highlights that lets you sleep and lets us get paid to watch comedy. If youre interested in hearing from The Times regularly about great TV, sign up for our Watching newsletter and get recommendations straight to your inbox Like Burgers and Hair Spray Jimmy Kimmel made fun of President Trump on Tuesday for the constant turnover in his administration. Last week, his administration fired the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, and Andrew McCabe, former deputy director of the F.B.I. Trump goes through cabinet members like he goes through cheeseburgers and Aqua Net: fast. JIMMY KIMMEL Mike Pompeo, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, is set to replace Tillerson. If youre Mike Pompeo, do you even do anything to your new office when you move in? Do you put up pictures, or do you just live out of a bankers box, so you can just gather your stuff when its time to go? JIMMY KIMMEL The Facebook Fallout THE X-FILES 8 p.m. on Fox. Barring yet another surprise, it sure seems like this will be the last episode of this stunningly resilient show, which has transitioned into the new millennium with grace. Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) contemplate aging and their tenuous relationship as they rush to find an on-the-run William; the Cigarette Smoking Man pushes forward with his ultimate plan. O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? (2000) 8 p.m. on CMT. In 1999, George Clooney hung up his ER scrubs; in 2001, he donned his nattiest suit for Oceans Eleven. In between, he played one of his strangest and scrappiest roles, as an ex-convict wandering the dusty roads of Depression-era Mississippi. He and his companions flee from a cyclops, sirens and the Ku Klux Klan, making some great music along the way. The Coen brothers wrote and directed the film, in which their whiz-kid inventiveness reaches new heights of whimsy, A. O. Scott wrote in his review in The New York Times. T he cinematography is courtesy of Roger Deakins, who finally won his first Oscar this month on his 14th try. The reason I felt such urgency to rebel against Brexit has, of course, to do with my 28 years living in England and Germany, but also because I really predicted at the time that it will be all about language. It will turn into an ugly blame game, and when the promises of a glorious post-Brexit future do not turn out right, no one will say Well, maybe we got it wrong. Even though Im not campaigning in the U.K. anymore, I really think anything that could stop Brexit is a good thing. Even though it would be seen as anti-democratic, I think the pain and the antagonism in language and the sentiments of this divorce is more harmful. What were you most surprised by when putting together this collection? I learned how, for the last 50 years or so in the Western world, authoritarian people have been kept widely at bay. They have had to accept feminist, nonracist and L.G.B.T. progress, social justice, international cooperation and anti-nationalism. They had to accept all of that, and things in society changed for the better so dramatically because individuals believed in it and spoke up for it. So one should see it this way around: Trump being in power and Brexit succeeding is not the reason for despair, but it is really a backlash to 50 years of civil rights and liberal progress. What conversations do you hope the work will provoke? Unlike a number of other asylum-seekers from China, Zhuang and Little Yan are in a relatively privileged position: They arrive flush with savings from a land sale, and without crushing debts. At the same time, they have no family, no ready-made network to show them how anything is done. Zhuang never finished middle school. Not to mention that New York City is an extraordinarily expensive place to live. Image Lauren Hilgers Credit... Erich Hehn It takes them 18 months to get permission to bring over their son, whom they left with Little Yans family when they traveled to the United States. He was a baby at the time, and has spent half his life apart from his parents. The scene of the couple meeting their son at Kennedy Airport is all the more wrenching for Hilgerss understated description of what she sees: When Little Yan reached her hand out to him, he shook his head and backed up a step. He looked up at her as if she were a giant. Hilgers widens her lens to include other Chinese emigres, and she offers historical context too, including the codified bigotry of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which placed a 10-year moratorium on immigration by Chinese laborers. She weaves the details into a chapter on Tang Yuanjun, the chairman for Flushings Chinese Democracy Parties, who leads a monthly protest in front of the Chinese consulate in Manhattan. After spending eight years in a Chinese prison for his dissident work, he escaped by swimming to Taiwan from a fishing boat. Despite what amounts to little more than a cameo appearance, Tang is an intriguing character, and he has some of the best quotes in the book. He continues to be a committed activist even as he gains the realism and perspective of someone who, in his late 50s, has seen it all. He knows people might claim asylum for all sorts of reasons. Still, he hopes that even those whose dissident credentials are less than sterling might learn a thing or two about democracy by attending his meetings. People are complicated, Tang says. If you say they are here for their asylum case, thats not true. But if you say they are not here for their asylum case, thats not true. Zhuangs own activist credentials are never in doubt. If anything, without a good fight to sustain him he begins to drift, and its only when Wukan needs him again that he gets a renewed sense of purpose. By the end of the book, hes traveling across the United States, protesting another government crackdown on his village. Tang tells Hilgers that the trajectory for a new emigre tends to follow a certain arc: In the first year you speak brave, bold words. In the second, nonsense. By the third, you have nothing to say at all. That doesnt hold true for Zhuang, who frustrates expectations at every turn. We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we cant then we dont deserve to serve you, Mr. Zuckerberg wrote. Ive been working to understand exactly what happened and how to make sure this doesnt happen again. Here are the steps the company is taking to address the issue: We will investigate all apps that had access to large amounts of information before we changed our platform to dramatically reduce data access in 2014, and we will conduct a full audit of any app with suspicious activity. We will restrict developers data access even further to prevent other kinds of abuse. We want to make sure you understand which apps youve allowed to access your data. In the next month, we will show everyone a tool at the top of your News Feed with the apps youve used and an easy way to revoke those apps permissions to your data. Mr. Zuckerberg had drawn criticism for his response to how Cambridge Analytica improperly obtained data on 50 million Facebook users. In the days since the news first broke this weekend, he had not commented publicly on the crisis. That contrasts with how other tech chief executives have addressed crises at their firms. Kevin Roose and Sheera Frenkel of the NYT report: When a former engineer revealed a pattern of sexual harassment at Uber last year, Travis Kalanick, then the companys chief executive, said he would immediately open an investigation. When users complained about bugs and problems with the Apple Maps app in 2012, Tim Cook, the companys chief executive, released a statement that said we fell short. And in 2011, when Netflix tried to split off its mail-order DVD business into a company called Qwikster, its chief executive, Reed Hastings, wrote a letter to the public. I messed up, he said. I owe everyone an explanation. So why did it take so long for Mr. Zuckerberg to respond? Kate Losse, an early Facebook employee and Mr. Zuckerbergs former speechwriter, told the NYT: My guess is that what is giving Zuckerberg pause at this point is the question of how to acknowledge and explain this state of affairs while at the same time mitigating the concerns that will come from people finally understanding how this all worked. Less than two days before the Trump administration plans to impose steep tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, its chief trade representative said Wednesday that several of the nations top trading partners were in line for potential exemptions. The trade official, Robert Lighthizer, said at a hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee that the administration was talking with Australia, Argentina and the European Union about excluding them from the 25 percent tariff on imported steel and 10 percent charge on aluminum. He added that there were plans to talk with Brazil about possible exemptions, and raised the possibility that South Korea could be excluded as the United States continues to hold talks with Seoul over a bilateral trade agreement. Mr. Lighthizer said he favored sparing those countries from the tariffs while talks continue, though he said that decision would be up to the president. Mr. Lighthizer said he expected the conversations over exclusions to conclude by the end of April. HOUSTON In a setback to Trump administration efforts to increase offshore oil production, the industry responded with only modest interest on Wednesday in a federal auction covering a record 77 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico. Companies bid on only 1 percent of the acreage, and the winning bids yielded a mere $125 million for the government. The results reflected broad uncertainty among oil executives that global oil prices can remain at current levels over $60 a barrel, as well as a general preference for drilling in onshore shale fields that require smaller investments and are less risky. Administration officials characterized the auction as a success since major oil companies Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Chevron and Total had placed over 150 bids, and the yield tally was $3 million above a regional lease sale in August. BRUSSELS European authorities on Wednesday proposed revamping the way many technology companies in the region are taxed, outlining wide-ranging changes that they hope will curb tax avoidance across the European Union. The system would tax a companys revenues in the countries where they are generated, rather than its profits. Regulators say so-called profit-shifting allows some businesses to use regional offices in low-tax countries to reduce payments. The plan pits the European Union against the United States as both sides battle to retain corporate tax revenue. It is one of a number of issues on which Brussels and Washington have clashed, from the broader regulation of the technology industry to a dispute over American steel and aluminum tariffs. The proposals unveiled on Wednesday also support the argument that Europe is the worlds most prominent regulator of technology and digital services. The 28-nation European Union has outsize impact not just for its market of about 500 million customers, but because officials around the world increasingly take their cue from Brussels on how to regulate the tech industry. LONDON Swiss prosecutors said on Wednesday they had opened a criminal investigation into a tax case involving the French luxury group Kering, widening the legal scrutiny of its tax practices in Europe. The announcement comes four months after Italian authorities began looking into Kerings flagship brand, Gucci. The Swiss attorney generals office said that it had received and acted upon a request for assistance by the public prosecutors office in Milan. The Italian inquiry, which began in November and is being led by a national police force specializing in financial crimes, included a raid on Gucci offices in Florence and Milan. At issue in the Italian case was whether profits Kering made on Gucci sales in Italy had in fact been declared in Switzerland, where tax laws are more favorable. The Italian newspaper La Stampa reported last year that the authorities were looking into whether Gucci should have paid as much as 1.3 billion euros, or $1.54 billion, in past domestic taxes. Open primaries sometimes help progressives like Bernie Sanders and sometimes non-progressives like Dan Lipinski. Photo: Getty Images During the 2016 Democratic presidential nominating contest, it became an article of faith among Bernie Sanders supporters that closed primaries that prevented non-registered-Democrats from participating were a key part of the rigging of the process in favor of Hillary Clinton. While it was really a stretch to claim that election systems created years ago by state legislatures, many of which were controlled by the GOP, were designed to defeat candidates like Sanders, there was a plausible case to be made that in 2016, at least, closed primaries (particularly those like New Yorks that prevented changes in party registration for months before a primary) kept a lot of left-leaning independents from turning out for the insurgent candidate. It is somewhat embarrassing to Berniecrats, then, that an open primary in Illinois may have materially contributed to the defeat of their very favorite insurgent candidate of the young 2018 election season: the Third Districts Marie Newman, who lost by an eyelash yesterday to incumbent Democrat Dan Lipinski. Newman, who was endorsed by Sanders (and by Jan Schakowsky and Luis Gutierrez, progressive colleagues of Lipinski from Chicago), ran against Lipinskis record of opposition to abortion rights, Obamacare, the Dream Act, and other Democratic priorities. Somewhat ironically, if predictably, Lipinski was backed by the House Democratic leaders and the AFL-CIO. But what in the end may have saved the incumbent was crossover voting from Republicans, particularly anti-abortion Republicans, as Ryan Grim reports: Sophia Olazaba, a field manager for the Newman campaign, said she doesnt doubt that some Republican voters crossed over. Even when we were canvassing, a lot of homes have had both Jeanne Ives and Dan Lipinski signs, so those people could have crossed over, she said, referring to the GOP gubernatorial candidate whose entire campaign was premised on her opposition to legal abortion. The anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List became heavily invested in Lipinskis survival. And easing the way for Republicans to vote for him was the fact that the GOP discouraged its voters from casting a ballot for the only Third District candidate who qualified for the Republican primary, neo-Nazi Art Jones. Yes, most of the states anti-abortion activist energy was focused on Ivess challenge to pro-choice Republican governor Bruce Rauner, which came nearly as close as Newmans campaign to pulling the upset. But Ivess most prominent national backer, National Review magazine, explicitly encouraged Republicans in the Third District to cross over and vote for Lipinski. Yes, its also possible the Newman campaign pulled some pro-choice Republicans across the line into the Democratic primary, and independents may have backed both candidates; its hard to tell without exit polls, particularly in a state with no voter registration by party. Moreover, one can always cite multiple factors that decided very close elections. But the possibility open-primary rules saved Lipinski should serve as a reminder that open primaries are no panacea for progressive Democrats, even if they might have helped Sanders in 2016 with his disproportionately youthful (and thus disproportionately likely to register as independents) following. Primary interlopers can come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and ideological preoccupations. In the music industrys most closely watched copyright case, a federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld a jurys finding that Robin Thickes song Blurred Lines infringed on the copyright of Marvin Gayes Got to Give It Up. When the case went to trial in 2015, it became a flash point in the music industry over the limits of copyright. The family of Gaye, who died in 1984, argued that Got to Give It Up was copied without permission, and that it had helped make Blurred Lines the biggest hit of 2013. Lawyers for Mr. Thicke and Pharrell Williams, who helped write and record the song, disputed that claim, and in the wider music industry, many worried that suit went too far in trying to protect generic elements of a songs style and feel. A victory, opponents of the case warned, could lead more litigation and have a chilling effect on creativity. Since the dispute over Blurred Lines began, there have been several prominent settlements over credit and royalties. For example, even before the Blurred Lines verdict was announced, Sam Smith willingly shared credit for his hit Stay With Me after Tom Petty said it sounded like his song I Wont Back Down. WASHINGTON The Senate gave final approval on Wednesday to legislation that strengthens the policing of sex trafficking, over the opposition of many internet companies. Lawmakers are trying to catch up to the reality of prostitution long after the bartering of children and adults moved from the streets to the web. The 97-to-2 vote was the culmination of a multiyear effort by Republicans and Democrats to allow state law enforcement officials to go after websites like Backpage.com that facilitate sex trafficking. The bill would also suspend protections that shielded internet companies from legal liability for the content on their sites. The legislation has pitted lawmakers against Silicon Valley companies and civil liberties groups, which hold starkly differing views on the governments oversight of the internet. Big tech companies like Facebook and Google have flourished with little regulation for years, but they have come under intense scrutiny after their platforms were manipulated by foreign agents during the 2016 presidential election. With passage of the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, Silicon Valleys ability to stay out of the governments reach suffered a rare setback. The bill passed the House overwhelmingly last month, and President Trump is expected to sign it into law. During the administration of President Barack Obama, attorneys general from Republican states developed a powerful tool: They teamed up dozens of times to sue the federal government to block environmental initiatives. Now, Democrats are using the same playbook to fight the Trump administration. Blue-state attorneys general have filed more than two dozen environmental lawsuits against the Trump administration since January 2017, and the victories are piling up. This month, a court said the Environmental Protection Agency had broken the law by delaying smog protections. In February, states forced the Department of Energy to enact efficiency standards for household appliances. And in two different decisions in the past year, courts thwarted the administrations attempts to delay regulations on emissions by the oil and gas industry. The rise of state attorneys general as partisan warriors against presidential administrations is a relatively new phenomenon, according to some who served in more amicable days. Up until 1999, the attorneys general were very nonpartisan, said Grant Woods, a former Arizona attorney general and a Republican. For instance, Republicans and Democrats in the 1990s teamed up to sue the tobacco industry over the health effects of its products and the burdens cigarette smoking placed on state Medicaid budgets. Mr. Woods recalled that, when pursuing such cases with fellow state attorneys general, he was not even sure of some colleagues party affiliations. Today everyone has it branded on their forehead, like a scarlet letter, he said. I interviewed Dr. Earle to ask her whether, having seen what she has seen, she thinks we have time to mitigate climate change. (The following has been condensed and edited for clarity.) What is the single most profound change youve witnessed in a lifetime diving? There was a period in the 1970s when I dived in an area called Lee Stocking Island, in the Bahamas. We got to know the individual fish and there was one giant boulder, a big brain coral, that was just thriving with life. It was a destination: Lets go see Rainbow Reef and admire that monstrous coral. It was in 1980 that it turned into a snowball [it bleached]. It was shocking. That was climate change in action. What do you say to people who are not convinced by the evidence? I think about poor Galileo, 500 years ago or so, when he had evidence that Earth is not the center of the universe and was ostracized. Now, we have evidence that we are totally dependent on the natural systems that hold the planet steady within the temperature range that is safe for us. You can measure the shrinking Arctic and Antarctic ice. Half the coral reefs have either gone or are in a state of sharp decline. I think its getting easier, because the ocean is beginning to speak for herself. You helped persuade President George W. Bush to create an ocean monument 100 times the size of Yosemite. Now, the Trump administration is trying to shrink similar protected areas. How does that make you feel? Quoting a former Republican president who was not widely celebrated for his environmental ethic, Ronald Reagan: Protecting the environment is not a liberal or conservative thing, its just common sense. He at least could see the connection between the economy and the environment. When you lose the quality of a place environmentally the trees, the water, the space, the air there are economic and human social consequences. Its taken a longer time for people to realize that the ocean is vast and resilient, but its not too big to fail. What do you tell people who tell you that they dont have hope, or they dont know what they can do? This is the best time ever to be around, because we have the power of knowing. Look in the mirror to recognize your personal power. Its a matter of using what youve got. Take a kid out to some wild place and see the world through that childs eyes. Look at the future and imagine youre there, 50 years out. Weve reached a time when we really have to choose between our wants and our needs, and we need a planet that works. It was the must-have bag of last summer. All through the warm months of 2017, my Instagram feed was flooded with photos of people friends, celebrities, celebrities I think of as friends carrying Cult Gaias Ark bag. It is delicate and crescent shaped, constructed from bamboo, and reminiscent somehow of both an antique bird cage and a picnic basket. It was also initially less than $100, which is fairly affordable; even now, when the smallest version in the natural color sells for $128, it is still a steal in the fashion world. But the price didnt disqualify it from mention in the high-end glossy magazines, including Vogue, Elle and Harpers Bazaar. In October 2016, the bag had a waiting list 1,800 people long, according to Cult Gaia. So it came as no surprise that knockoffs were right around the corner. Red Dress Boutique and Perennial Chic have their own versions of the bamboo handbag, and Amazon sells versions as well, but it is Steve Maddens nearly identical model that provoked a legal spat. In February, Cult Gaia threatened to sue Steve Madden for infringement, claiming that Steve Maddens version the BShipper, $68 was a direct copy of the Ark. In response, Steve Madden turned around and sued Cult Gaia, arguing that by attempting to gain exclusive rights to the bags design, Cult Gaia was treating the bag as an original. In fact, Steve Maddens lawyers argued, the Ark bag slavishly copies the traditional Japanese bamboo picnic bag design of the 1940s. The lawsuit was firsted reported by The Fashion Law. The C.D.C. was recently in the spotlight when Mr. Azar said he believed the agency should resume research on gun violence, which it drastically cut more than 20 years ago. Dr. Redfields views on gun violence research and other contentious issues such as access to abortion and sexual health education are not yet known. His work in AIDS research and policy has generated concern over the years, in particular for his call in the mid-1980s to late 1980s for widespread AIDS testing and screening of military recruits for H.I.V. While pushing for broader AIDS testing during routine exams as a means to contain the epidemic, Dr. Redfield also called for reducing the stigma associated with the disease. At a congressional hearing in August 1987, Dr. Redfield recommended regular testing, at doctors appointments and hospitalizations, as well as for marriage license applicants, and incorporating the test into the practice of medicine, according to news reports. But he also said, We have to tell people its anti-American to discriminate against people who have the AIDS virus. In the early 1990s, Dr. Redfield was the subject of a military investigation after colleagues suspected that he overstated the therapeutic effects of an experimental AIDS vaccine at presentations and in a report. The investigation led to a correction in some published data, according to documents. Several high-level colleagues, however, felt the military should have been tougher on Dr. Redfield, who they felt raised false hopes about the efficacy of a treatment vaccine he was developing. At the time, Public Citizens Health Research Group sued to gain the records, and made them public. In a 1992 letter to Col. Donald Burke, the director of the division of retrovirology, Major Craig W. Hendrix, director of the Air Force HIV program, wrote that the credibility of the militarys efforts on retroviral research was at risk and under scrutiny. Severe, painful steps must be taken less we dishonor the honest labors of so many colleagues and patients within our research consortium. We cannot continue to deceive. In an interview Tuesday, Dr. Hendrix, now a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, recalled the incident, which he now uses as a case study in ethics. Food insecurity is when someone does not have access to enough nutritious food for an active and healthy life. According to Feeding America 12.9 million children in the United States lived in food-insecure households in 2016. Have you, or anyone close to you, ever experienced food insecurity, or worried about where your next meal would come from? If so, how did it affect your studies, your health or your social life? Where did you turn for help, if you did? Were there any supports in place at your school? Why or why not? In Its Hard to Be Hungry on Spring Break, Anthony Abraham Jack writes: The phrase spring break conjures up images of college students lounging on beaches by day and hitting the clubs at night. Many students do, in fact, travel from campus to far-flung places. On the assumption that most students leave, schools generally shut down. But this assumption is outdated, especially as colleges enroll a greater number of academically talented students from poor families. I met Valeria, an engaging sociology major from the Midwest, while conducting a study on social class at elite colleges that included white, black, Latino and Asian students. (Valeria is not her real name; the terms of my research protocol require that I use pseudonyms for all students.) In our conversations, she described one aspect of how it felt to be a poor student on a rich campus: Theres always famine during spring break. This problem is more complicated and widespread than people realize. Data I collected in 2016 on colleges that have adopted no-loan financial aid policies, which is one way of measuring a schools commitment to lower-income students, reveal that roughly one in four kept their cafeterias open during spring break the same way they do when classes are in session. At Harvard, where I teach, it was not until 2015 that the administration opened the dining halls during the break (a project I was involved in). Some colleges, like Smith and Carleton, charge students additional fees to stay on campus during this period. Now, a daily rate of $10 or $15 might not seem like much to some. But to many lower-income students, it is substantial. Spring break is a luxury that many students cant afford. In a sense, though, it is one that many colleges make them buy anyway. I faced this reality as a student at Amherst in the mid-2000s. Valentine Hall, our only cafeteria, closed. I could not afford to go home to Miami, the choice destination for many of my peers. Instead, I foraged through campus job postings to pick up extra shifts to pay off meals I put on my credit card. Todays students face a similar fate. With no access to a kitchen in which to cook or store food, Michael, a slim, reserved first-generation college student, told me, I just go to Family Dollar to buy things that I can microwave. Many students I spoke to rationed food they took from the cafeteria, oftentimes with the help of sympathetic cafeteria workers. Spencer, the daughter of refugees, recounted how she stole food the day before they closed everything I took a bunch of bread and things that are not perishable. Michelle, reflective and thoughtful, imported a strategy she used when she and her family were homeless in New York: She found a soup kitchen near campus. With comedic seriousness, Arianna, who has a Southern California vibe, told me, Spring break is the real Hunger Games. Students: Read the entire Sunday Review piece, then tell us: What is your overall reaction to Mr. Jacks Opinion piece, and the information in it? Why did you answer the way you did? Do you agree with the following paragraph? Why or why not?: Food insecurity undercuts academic performance. But its effects go beyond lowering grades. Hunger in the midst of plenty weakens students sense of belonging and undercuts their social, emotional and physical well-being. Knowing ones peers are away relaxing while you scrounge for food makes poor students not only keenly aware of their own economic disadvantage but also of what their colleges make them endure because of it. Mr. Jack writes that some colleges have changed their policies as a way to support students experiencing food insecurity, for example by keeping their cafeterias open during school breaks. Do you think more colleges should adopt that policy? In 2017, after New York City schools began offering free lunches for all students, The Times published a Letter to the Editor that said, in part: Removing the stigma from free school meals by making them available to all is an important step, but it cannot be the only step. Government, public health researchers, advocacy groups and the public must come together to identify the causes of such widespread food insecurity and develop and carry out innovative strategies for alleviating it. Do you agree? Are there any other remedies you can think of that might alleviate students food insecurity in schools at all grade levels? If so, what suggestions do you have? When Susan Ressler returned home from photographing a Native American community in northern Canada, something didnt sit well. She had been there for three months in 1973 with an anthropologist, following families as they battled alcoholism and poverty. She had dreamed of becoming a documentary photographer like Dorothea Lange, but her time in Canada left her questioning her privileged status as a photographer. Here I was photographing these impoverished people and they didnt have any sense of where I was coming from and what I might do with those photographs, how it might affect them, she said. I started thinking about how much documentary photography is from a position of looking down on somebody who has less power. So what would happen if she flipped the narrative and photographed scenes apropos of her own upper-middle-class background? A high-tech team is already scouting congestion on Manhattans streets. It includes dozens of E-ZPass readers that check constantly for gridlock from atop traffic-signal poles at intersections. They measure vehicle volumes and speeds in real time and alert New York City engineers when to adjust and sync green lights to keep traffic moving as part of a city program, Midtown in Motion. Now a congestion-pricing plan recommended by a state task force could significantly expand this E-ZPass infrastructure, which has also been used for cashless tolling at bridges and tunnels. But it would be harnessed for a new purpose: charging a daily fee to drive into a congestion zone from 60th Street south to the Battery during busy times. While congestion pricing faces daunting political obstacles, there are a host of complex technical issues that pose just as much of a challenge. Technology has advanced in the decade since the last major congestion-pricing push in New York, and a growing number of cities and municipalities have harnessed it to unclog roads, shorten commutes and raise millions of dollars for transportation needs. But even advocates of congestion pricing are divided over how to transplant it to New York, which would be the first American city to have a pay-to-drive fee in its central business district. Many say that building on existing E-ZPass technology could get a congestion zone up and running in two years, but others caution that newer, fast-developing technologies could be cheaper and more efficient. HARTFORD Andrew J. McDonald had been overwhelmingly approved by lawmakers five years ago when he joined the Connecticut Supreme Court. Now he has returned to the State Legislature this time nominated to be chief justice with the backing of much of the states legal establishment. He was put up for the job by a Democratic governor in a state where the party has dominated for years. Still, his confirmation is anything but guaranteed and has devolved into a contentious partisan fight. Justice McDonald is not the first Supreme Court nominee in Connecticut to face significant resistance in the State Legislature. But his nomination has become marked by an unusual level of acrimony. Stiff opposition from Republicans has imperiled his confirmation, while his supporters have mounted a robust effort that borrows from the tactics of political campaigns, even using robocalls and television advertisements to pressure lawmakers. (One commercial featured an image of President Trump and urged residents to call their legislator, saying, You can stop this smear campaign now.) The battle, which has drawn widespread attention to what can often be a rather subdued process, has been described by legal experts as further evidence of politics seeping into the selection of judges across the country. The situation also reflects a fractured political climate in Connecticut, as Republicans, and even some Democrats, have become emboldened in challenging an unpopular governor, Dannel P. Malloy, who is in his last year in office. Putin up with it. Photo: Mikhail Klimentyev/Mikhail Klimentyev/TASS As dispatches from the deindustrialized heartland keep reminding us, Donald Trumps presidency has disappointed only a small fraction of his 2016 campaigns core supporters but the Russian government just might be one. In exchange for its myriad (alleged) efforts to benefit the moguls candidacy, the Kremlin has received remarkably little in return. While the Trump White House did slow-walk some sanctions, in some respects, it has taken a more hawkish approach to Russia than its predecessor, approving lethal arms sales to anti-Russian forces in Ukraine, and abetting the slaughter of dozens of Russian soldiers in Syria. And yet, even as his administrations posture toward Russia has been rather hostile, Trumps personal posture toward Vladmir Putin has been relentlessly friendly and, on occasion, downright adulatory. The presidents irrepressible fondness for his Russian counterpart made headlines (yet again) this week, when Trump congratulated Putin for winning reelection. The Washington Post subsequently revealed that Trumps national security advisers had included a note in his briefing materials that read DO NOT CONGRATULATE. But the president (reportedly) ignored his counsel, along with a request to denounce Russias apparent decision to spew a bunch of toxic nerve poison in the middle of London earlier this month. On Wednesday, the president offered the following defense of this maverick approach to diplomacy with a homicidal tyrant. I called President Putin of Russia to congratulate him on his election victory (in past, Obama called him also). The Fake News Media is crazed because they wanted me to excoriate him. They are wrong! Getting along with Russia (and others) is a good thing, not a bad thing....... Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 21, 2018 .....They can help solve problems with North Korea, Syria, Ukraine, ISIS, Iran and even the coming Arms Race. Bush tried to get along, but didnt have the smarts. Obama and Clinton tried, but didnt have the energy or chemistry (remember RESET). PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 21, 2018 This is a persuasive defense of Trumps decision to ignore his national security advisers counsel for at least three reasons: 1. If theres been one consistent theme in Donald Trumps foreign policy, its his profound reluctance to say or do anything that would make it more difficult for the U.S. to get along with other countries. Whether the issue is trade, climate change, or immigration this president has always prioritized maintaining good relations between the U.S. and its allies above all else. Thus, no one could fairly accuse Trump of selectively applying this live and live stance to Putins kleptocracy. 2. No one can deny that the conflict in Ukraine and the coming Arms race are American problems that Vladimir Putin has been helpful in solving. 3. It is totally normal for the president to say that George W. Bush was too dumb for Putin, and Obama too low energy, but that he is just right, as if the Russian leader were Goldilocks, and he, a warm bowl of oatmeal. So while there did appear to be something odd and unseemly to Trumps relationship with Putin before, the president has now successfully put such concerns to rest. Gateway had built bipartisan support among representatives of New York and New Jersey and received the blessing of former President Barack Obama. The two states had pledged to cover half of the cost of the most critical parts of the project the tunnel and improvements along Amtraks rail line between New York City and Newark. Those segments have an estimated cost of more than $11 billion. But the Trump administration reversed course late last year and declared that there was no agreement for the federal government to provide the other half of the funding. Mr. Trump pressed House Speaker Paul Ryan, a fellow Republican, to leave any money for Gateway out of the spending bill that Congress is completing this week, according to people with knowledge of the conversations. That stance angered some Republicans from the region who had stumped for the project, including Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen from northern New Jersey and Representative Peter King from Long Island. Mr. King had vowed to vote no on a spending bill that failed to fund Gateway. Congressional aides said that the latest draft of the spending bill included about $540 million in allocations that could be used on Gateway and about $2.9 billion in grants to the Department of Transportation that Gateways planners could apply for. The projects supporters are wary about the chances of receiving discretionary funding because the secretary of transportation, Elaine Chao, has opposed the notion that the federal government should supply a significant portion of the projects funding. Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey, a Democrat, said in an interview on Wednesday that Gateway is too important to not get funded. But he was reluctant to celebrate prematurely, saying only that he was hopeful. Senator Charles E. Schumer, the Democratic leader from New York who has been a vocal supporter of Gateway, declined to comment. Youre trained that if gas is dropped, you have to put on your gas mask, she said. Then if a plane is coming over, they show you how you go into the trenches. That was rough, the hardest thing. She also did abandon-ship drills, though she did not need that skill on her trip to Europe aboard the repurposed Queen Elizabeth liner. It was a miserable voyage nonetheless. I was seasick the whole time, she said, so much so that, late in the trip, when she was finally able to join the larger group, someone in the mess hall was surprised by the new face. The fellow said to me, How did you get on this ship? she recalled. She was clerk for the battalions Company B. The six triple eight, as the battalion was called, was under the command of Major Charity Edna Adams, who, after her marriage, added her husbands name, Earley, and ended her military career as a lieutenant colonel. The job facing the unit was formidable: Millions of pieces of mail had piled up in Birmingham in unheated, poorly lighted warehouses where rats had been attracted by undelivered packages containing food. Ms. Veasey had been in England for four months when Germanys surrender came V-E Day, May 8, 1945. She was on leave in London at the time and celebrated under one of that citys landmarks. For a time it seemed that the United States, too, was on our side. American officials spoke of diplomatic recognition of Syrian democrats, serious investment in reconstruction and training the 30,000 Syrian democratic soldiers so that they could serve as a professional security force. Such promises were greeted with hope and joy in places like Afrin, Manbej and Qamishli. A strong American-Syrian relationship meant that Syria would no longer be a rogue state, or turn into the failed state that it threatened to become, but a state that would have productive relationships with the United States, Europe, Arab countries and even Turkey. But these dreams of a new Syria were transformed into a nightmare by President Recep Tayyip Erdogans pro-jihadist policies. Rather than working with the Syrian Democratic Forces, Turkey is attacking us. Rather than celebrating the defeat of the Islamic State with us, Turkey is killing the same soldiers who secured its Syrian border against the Islamic State. Rather than keeping us focused on protecting our oil fields from falling into Russian hands, Turkey is distracting us and forcing our troops to be dispatched to Afrin. Why is Turkey doing this? Because it insists that Syrian Kurds are an offshoot of the P.K.K., a Kurdish party in Turkey that is engaged in a war for more Kurdish rights. While many Kurdish leaders, including me, have stated many times that we and the P.K.K. are different organizations, with different leadership, Turkey refuses to believe us. They also refuse to believe the United States, which has said the same. Although the Islamic State poses a threat to everyone in the free world, including the United States, the Syrian Democratic Forces never asked the United States to fight our war. Our young women and men have gone bravely to the front lines to fight this genocidal group. We have built our own defense units, our own political institutions and governing bodies to establish pockets of freedom and democracy in a country being torn apart. To the Editor: Re Missing in the Fight Against Anti-Semitism (news analysis, Sunday Review, March 18): Jonathan Weismans assertion that the American Jewish Committee has been remarkably quiet about anti-Semitism ignores our history of activism on the issue, as evidenced in the opinion pages of American newspapers and magazines, our social media, our nationwide campaign to enlist hundreds of mayors to stand up against anti-Semitism, and our advocacy for stronger hate crime laws. Being serious about anti-Semitism means condemning it whatever the source, whether from the right or the left, but Mr. Weisman is remarkably silent in his essay about anti-Semitism from anywhere but the right. Thus he makes no mention of the silence of many self-identified progressives regarding the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhans vile anti-Semitism. Further, Mr. Weisman implies that pro-Israel activism diverts attention from ensuring Jewish security in the United States. In fact, anti-Semitism is closely linked with anti-Israel and anti-Zionist agitation. Jewish students on American campuses, for example, have been barred from progressive activism unless they renounce Zionism. This article is part of the Opinion Today newsletter. You can sign up here to receive the newsletter each weekday. The election of Donald Trump was so shocking and damaging to the country that many people went looking for a scapegoat. There was a long list of candidates. Hillarys flawed campaign. Bernies long campaign. The Electoral College. The media. Sexist voters. Racist voters. Economically anxious voters. Nonvoters. James Comey. Anthony Weiner. Vladimir Putin. Twitter. And Facebook. By spreading false news stories and giving a megaphone to Russian trolls, Facebook a vastly larger social network than Twitter played a meaningful role in the presidential campaign. Of course, so did many other suspects on the list. There was no single factor that allowed Trump to win. It was a confluence. We will be greeted as liberators upon invading Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney counseled in 2003 on the eve of the war. He had already relayed a prediction that the streets in Basra and Baghdad are sure to erupt in joy. President George W. Bush declared that there was no doubt that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that an invasion would be largely self-financing and that it would last five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isnt going to last any longer. So 15 years ago this week, the United States careered into one of the most cataclysmic, expensive and idiotic blunders of the last half-century: We invaded Iraq. The financial cost alone to the United States will top $3 trillion, according to the estimates of the economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, or about $24,000 per American household. Some 4,400 American soldiers died in Iraq, along with approximately 500,000 Iraqis, according to a survey and academic study. On Sept. 20, Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, turning my life upside down. At the time, my two daughters and I were living in Carolina, a town on the northeastern side of the island. In just a day, my clothes were turned to rags, my home was destroyed, and I lost the few belongings I had. My mother lived in the same town but her house was still standing. For two months, we slept on a couch in her living room. But we couldnt stay there forever. In December, the Federal Emergency Management Agency moved us to New York City. Since then, weve been staying in hotels provided by FEMA in the Bronx and Brooklyn, like hundreds of other families who were moved to New York after the storm. But this experience can hardly be called living. Were barely surviving. Congress and the Trump administration have failed to truly address the crisis, leaving survivors stranded months after the storm. In Puerto Rico, we were told by FEMA that we were going to be welcomed in New York with open arms. But that hasnt been our experience. Lets get one thing straight: I am not a fan of Facebook. Im confident that social media is a cancer on our private lives and a source of derangement in our politics. I take it for granted that the tech barons are acquiring the power to tilt elections, and that theyll be happy to play handmaidens to tyrants soft and hard so long as they can monetize our data. I take a certain mordant pleasure in watching Mark Zuckerberg and his minions scapegoated for the political failures of late-Obama-era liberalism. But the liberal establishments fixation on Facebooks 2016 sins first the transmission of fake news and now the exploitation of its data by the Trump campaign or its appendages still feels like a classic example of blaming something new because its new when its the old thing that mattered more. Or of blaming something new because you thought that new meant good, that the use of social-media data by campaigns would always help tech-savvy liberals and not their troglodytic rivals and the shock of discovering otherwise obscures the more important role that older forms of media played in making the Trump era a reality. No doubt all the activity on Facebook and the apparent use of Facebooks data had some impact, somewhere, on Trumps surprise victory. But the media format that really made him president, the one whose weaknesses and perversities and polarizing tendencies he brilliantly exploited, wasnt Zuckerbergs unreal kingdom; it wasnt even the Twitter platform where Trump struts and frets and rages daily. It was that old pre-internet standby, broadcast and cable television, and especially TV news. Start with the fake news that laid the foundation for Trumps presidential campaign not the sort that circulates under clickbait headlines in your Facebook feed, but the sort broadcast in prime time by NBC, under the label of reality TV. Yes, as media sophisticates were all supposed to know that reality means fake, but in the beginning nobody marketed The Apprentice that way; across most of its run you saw a much-bankrupted real estate tycoon portrayed, week after week and season after season, as a titan of industry, the for-serious greatest businessman in the world. He knew everything, Mr. Lineham wrote. It may sound unbelievable, but he was the most reality-informed person I have ever met. Below is a collection of responses to the article many of which appeared as comments on the original article, and some of which were emailed to Stephen and published with the writers permission. Some have been edited for length and clarity. I strongly recommend one or two years as a monk Brian Hogan, from Fontainebleau, France, was a Trappist novice at Gethsemani Abbey near Bardstown, Ky., from 1957 to 1959. He said he was attracted to life in the monastery after seeing how the monks were the exact opposite of the big city parish priests he was raised with. I was a Trappist novice under Thomas Merton at Gethsemani Abbey (Mepkins mother-house) for two years after high school graduation in the late 1950s. The Trappists have changed since those days, when Trappist-Cistercian life was a lot tougher: constant obligatory silence; the use of sign language; sleeping on a straw-filled mattress in a small cell within a common dormitory; one full meal per day, and no meat, fish or eggs; no recreation or vacation; mail written to and received from family four times per year, and one annual family visit of three days; up at 2:15 a.m., in church at 2:30 a.m. to chant matins and lauds until 4:00 a.m.; a 7 p.m. bedtime; never going outside the monastic grounds. Though Mr. Cunningham lived to see greater acceptance, he became modest and effacing in his self-presentation, usually wearing a French sanitation workers blue jacket and khakis to capture the more flamboyant citizens of New York. He submitted reluctantly to a 2010 documentary. It feels like he had internalized that reaction, Mr. Richards said of the disapprovals of his childhood. Its speculation to think of why he decided not to publish this in his lifetime, but my assumption, having spent a lot of time with the text, is because though he really wanted to tell the story of this special period in his life, his education in creativity and style, at the same time he was worried how people were going to respond. But aside from some scenes of family discord, Mr. Cunninghams memoir is a rosy account of an irrepressible dreamer who tripped his way from the stockroom of Bostons newly opened Bonwit Teller to hat shops of his own in New York. He arrives in the city in November 1948 on opening night of the opera then a tent pole of the New York social calendar and stays long after the Social Register stopped being anyones bible. Much of the material is new, even to his relatives. Bill kept his family life in Boston and his work life in New York very separate, wrote his niece Trish Simonson, in an email. He told us stories over the years, but nothing that painted a full picture of what he did and how he came to do it. The drafts of the memoir we found, titled and edited and written in his own unmistakable voice, filled in a lot of blanks of how he made it from here to there, and what he thought along the way. Mark Anthony Conditt. Photo: Facebook Several weeks after his reign of terror began and just hours after blowing himself up with his own bomb, 23-year-old Mark Anthony Conditt was identified as the person behind a recent string of bombings in Austin, Texas, that killed two and injured five more. He is thought to be responsible for at least six bombs, but Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said Wednesday morning that there could be more. We dont know where this suspect has spent his last 24 hours, and therefore we need to remain vigilant to be sure no other packages have been left throughout the community, Manley said at a press conference. Earlier Wednesday, Conditt detonated a bomb inside his vehicle on the side of the interstate as SWAT officers approached him. The suspect is deceased, Manley said at the press conference. One SWAT officer sustained minor injuries from the bomb. A resident of the Austin suburb Pflugerville, Conditt was identified as the suspect thanks to surveillance footage, cell-phone records and his online orders of exotic batteries, NBC News reports. The surveillance footage was captured at a FedEx location in Austin, where Conditt shipped two packages containing bombs on Sunday night. He wore a wig, a hat and gloves into the store and sent the packages under the alias Kelly Killmore, according to ABC News. Reporters in Pflugerville have descended on Conditts home and have begun speaking to friends and family who variously describe him as a deep thinker, a very normal kid, and peaceful. One of his aunts released a prepared statement Wednesday afternoon. We are devastated and broken at the news that our family could be involved in such an awful way. We had no idea of the darkness that Mark must have been in. Our family is a normal family in every way. We love, we pray, and we try to inspire and serve others. Right now our prayers are for those families that have lost loved ones, for those impacted in any way, and for the soul of our Mark. We are grieving and we are in shock. Please respect our privacy as we deal with this terrible, terrible knowledge and try to support each other through this time. The oldest of four children, Conditt was homeschooled by his mother. BuzzFeed spoke to a 21-year-old woman named Cassia Schultz who said she ran in the same conservative survivalist circles in high school as Conditt. She mentioned that she and Conditt were a part of a social group for homeschooled kids called Righteous Invasion of Truth (RIOT). A lot of us were very into science; we would discuss chemicals and how to mix them and which ones were dangerous, Schultz told BuzzFeed. We were into weapons and stuff. A lot of us did role-playing, and RPG [role-playing games]; wed have foam weapons and act out a battle. Conditt attended Austin Community College from 2010 to 2012, though he didnt graduate. A series of blog posts he wrote for a U.S. government course at the college provide a glimpse of Conditts political views. The Austin American-Statesman reports that Conditt wrote about his opposition to gay marriage and abortion, and his support for the death penalty. He also advocated for the abolishment of sex-offender registries. Just look at the male and female bodies, he wrote in one post. They are obviously designed to couple. The natural design is apparent. It is not natural to couple male with male and female with female. It would be like trying to fit two screws together and two nuts together and then say, See, its natural for them to go together. Its not clear whether Conditts political views, which he described as conservative, motivated the bombings, which began on March 2 when Anthony Stephan House was killed after picking up a package on his porch in Austin. Two more package bombs exploded on March 12, killing 17-year-old Draylen Mason and injuring two others. Another bomb injured two men on an Austin sidewalk Sunday and on Tuesday a package exploded at a FedEx distribution center near San Antonio. A sixth bomb that did not detonate was discovered at another FedEx facility in Austin Tuesday. After his time at Austin Community College, Conditt worked at Crux Manufacturing in Pflugerville, KVUE in Austin reports. The station spoke to Conditts former boss, who said he was very quiet and introverted and acknowledged that Conditt had been fired last summer. The owner added that Conditt seemed like a smart kid who showed a lot of promise. Police on Wednesday spent hours at the home of Conditts parents, where they searched the property for any signs of explosives. An initial search did not turn up anything, but police plan to bring in bomb-sniffing dogs to look more closely, Austin Police Detective David Fugitt told reporters. Conditts two roommates were also detained and questioned, the Austin Police Department tweeted. One of them had been released at the time of the tweet, while the other was still being questioned. I was at a dinner with five friends the other week at the Grill, that temple of prime rib and larded squab in the former Four Seasons space in Manhattan, when the waiter uttered those dreaded words: We recommend sharing. As anyone who has dined out in New York, Los Angeles and other cool cities in the past decade knows, sharing is in. Small plates, large plates, starter or main theyre all meant to be sampled tablewide. The shift is most evident at those buzzy restaurants that feature tattooed servers, craft cocktails and lots of sunchokes and grass-fed beef. But it is not limited to them. Mass-market restaurants, where entree portions tend to be big enough to feed an N.B.A. starting five, are getting into the sharing craze, too. Applebees, for example, designed its 2 for $20 menu (two entrees and an appetizer) with sharing top of mind, said Stephen Bulgarelli, the companys chief culinary officer. Wes Andersons new animated movie, Isle of Dogs, is about a dog-saturated island. No, not Manhattan. The setting is a fictitious one, a grim trash island across the water from a Japanese city so saturated with dogs that they are all being deported by an evil mayor. Tuesdays lavish premiere at the Metropolitan Museum of Art began with a group photo of the cast howling in unison with an accuracy only actors can bring to their roles. It also gave guests a chance to talk about a topic closer to their hearts than the weather or politics. My dog Woody is a standard poodle, said Jeff Goldblum, who gives voice to a gossipy dog in the movie, on the red carpet before the screening. Hes kind and funny and gentle and genuine. And a model for humanity. Die Motte Designers: Astrid Schweitzer and Anel Rinat Barcelona, Spain Its quite a cultural mix, says Astrid Schweitzer, 22, of Die Motte, the Barcelona-based jewelry label that she runs with her co-designer Anel Rinat, 27. Schweitzer, who is of Chilean, Peruvian and German descent, was raised in Barcelonas vibrant Poble Sec neighborhood, which overlooks the Mediterranean. Rinat is Kazakh, and grew up in Almaty, surrounded by the sagebrush steppe and snow-capped mountains of Central Asia; she was shaped by the citys Scythian and Soviet heritage. The two met in a jewelry arts school in Barcelona in 2016 and quickly became friends. We connected by intuition, Schweitzer says. The brand is an amalgamation of their distinct backgrounds, and the pair produces precious-metal wire pieces that are both delicate and evocative: gilded dove-shaped barrettes that recall Picassos 1961 drawing La Colombe Bleue, rings made from miniature handmade silver links and face-shaped hoop earrings with dangling chains that look like tears. The designers process is instinctual, like their friendship: Ideas for new projects are formed during meandering walks through the foggy forests of Montseny or in their airy studio near Placa dEspanya, where they manipulate metals and sculpt. Its like meditating, Rinat says. Their most recent collection comprises wisp-like earrings, brooches and rings inspired by the Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti. We try to pull from our contrast and create a balance, Schweitzer says. If you look at the delete Facebook hashtag, people are really angry. And I think theyre sort of becoming aware of the extent to which theyre being watched and tracked. This feels like its a turning point for many of the people who use Facebook and arent happy about how their data is being used. And the more they find out, the less happy they are. I think people underestimate how hard it is to untangle ourselves from a social network like Facebook. So before you delete your Facebook account, just remember that its not just Facebook that youll be losing access to. Its also all of the third-party apps that you use Facebook to log in to or that are connected or plugged into your Facebook account. So its important before you make this choice to go through those apps, see which ones you still need access to, and if there are any, to switch your login from Facebook to something else. So you can still access it even after youve deleted your Facebook account. And there are just some apps that you wont have access to if you delete your Facebook account. Facebook has a lot of ways to track your activity even if youre not logged in or if you delete your account entirely, and it uses what it calls the social graph to track the activity of people across the internet beyond just Facebook.com. This accounts for everyone who uses the internet, and you dont have to have a Facebook profile to be tracked by Facebook. For example, if your friends have Facebook accounts or Facebook Messenger accounts and if theyve uploaded their contacts to Facebook and if youre one of their contacts, then Facebook knows your name and your phone number and can track you. When you deactivate or delete your Facebook profile, your profile disappears and people cant see what you posted or search for you. But all of the data that you gave over to third-party app developers is still out there. And those developers are not required to delete it or do anything with it. They can use it however they want. For as long as they want. Theres a whole list of ways that Facebook will track you outside of Facebook.com. To do the full cleanse, you would have to actually manually block a list of URLs that they use to track you. These are the lengths youd have to go to if you truly wanted to get off of Facebooks grid. In nearly three decades of visiting Paris, a highlight of my sojourns is shopping for the sort of Franco-distinct fashions impossible to find at home. Over the years, the proliferation of chain stores in Paris (and easy access to French luxury brands at home) has made finding unique pieces a challenge. So, on a recent trip, when I noticed a secondhand shop filled with high-end designer jackets, bags, boots and jewelry many from defunct Parisian ready-to-wear brands, I was thrilled. While paying for my haul (a cashmere blazer by Angelo Tarlazzi and vintage fur stole), I learned that there were dozens of others, a network of resale shops catering to Frenchwomens exacting taste and passion for a deal. As a longtime designer resale and thrift store aficionado, I find few things more satisfying than tracking down accouterments that whisper Fabrique a Paris without paying retail. Thus began my deep dive into the City of Lights lively depot-vente scene: upscale thrift shops that traffic specifically in luxury goods. More than 1,200 counties in the United States home to one in seven Americans had a negative natural increase in population in 2016. In total, 1,700 counties experienced a negative natural increase at least one year this decade. For many counties, this makes migration especially important for population stability and growth. Counties in the Northeast and Midwest that have traditionally lost residents to the South and West are having a harder time propping up their population numbers. Some maintain their numbers because of immigration, but American immigration policy is now a subject of debate, and a smaller number of immigrants would put more pressure on counties facing population loss. The nations sprawling growth pattern has taken its share of criticism; its associated with long-distance commuting, environmental degradation and urban decay. But population stagnation in places that had been growing will most likely bring its own sets of problems, including pressures on real estate values and eventual shrinking of political representation. And it starts with babies. The estimated lifetime births per woman is down 16 percent from a recent peak in 2007. New Census Bureau projections say that Americans over 65 will outnumber children under 18 for the first time in U.S. history by 2030, and that a rising number of deaths will increasingly offset how much births are able to contribute to population growth. Migration dropped significantly during the recession, Mr. Johnson said, but has returned to pre-recession patterns, albeit at a slower pace. Florida, Texas and Arizona have all seen population inflows resume, for example, while states in the North east and Midwest that were losing residents to migration have resumed losing them. ROUND ROCK, Tex. It was not much surveillance footage in and near an Austin-area FedEx store showing a man in a disguise dropping off packages. But for investigators from federal, state and local agencies who had been hunting a mysterious and prolific bomb-maker, it was what they needed their first big break. Up to that point in a two-week investigation, officials had never laid eyes on the man they believed was responsible for terrorizing the Texas capital since March 2. In the security footage, a red 2002 Ford Ranger could be seen, officials said. Because the authorities did not have a license plate number, they began combing through records all of them, for every vehicle with the same make and model in Texas. Investigators then began trying to match the records with a white male, possibly in his 20s. And there was another, more unorthodox clue from the surveillance video: the suspects hands. He was wearing pink construction gloves. Investigators determined the same type of gloves were available at Home Depot, and they began going through hours of surveillance video from Home Depot locations in and around Austin. They got a hit: security video from one store appeared to show the same suspect. Good morning. (Want to get California Today by email? Heres the sign-up.) Facebook has had a particularly bad few days, even for a Silicon Valley giant that has been under fire for months. The social network, which was once Silicon Valleys pride and joy, is now facing a new scandal over data privacy and the fallout has been intense and keeps widening. Lets recap how it all unfolded: Over the weekend, The New York Times, along with The Observer of London and The Guardian, broke the news that a British political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, improperly obtained data on 50 million Facebook users and used it to target messages to potential American voters. The revelations set off an immediate hue and cry. American and British lawmakers demanded that Facebook explain how the data had been harvested without people being alerted. Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, pressed Mark Zuckerberg, Facebooks chief executive, to appear before lawmakers in person. Others have since piled on. For decades, treasure hunters in Pennsylvania have suspected that there is a trove of Civil War gold lost in a rural forest in the northwestern part of the state. But the mystery about where it is hidden, or if it even exists, has recently deepened. Last week, F.B.I. representatives showed up at a site in Dents Run, Elk County, an area known for its seasonal elk viewing activities that feed the economy of nearby Benezette Township. The agency, in a statement on Monday, said very little about the mission aside from describing its work as a court-authorized excavation at Dents Run that ended on March 14. Its conclusion: Nothing was found. An F.B.I. spokeswoman, Carrie Adamowski, declined to comment further. The sudden and apparently secretive appearance of federal investigators at the site has deepened the mystery over the fate of the gold bars that has persisted for more than a century, despite the efforts and hopes of treasure hunters, the study of historians and the years of scrutiny by local news media. We dont have any information to believe that the family had any knowledge of these events, Detective Fugitt said. Theyre having a difficult time. This is certainly a shock to the conscience. Family friends, neighbors and former classmates were at a loss to explain why Mr. Conditt had carried out the attacks, how he had learned about bomb-making or whether he was driven by racial animus. The first bombs hit members of African-American families who were well known locally, killing a 17-year-old boy and a 39-year-old man. Mr. Conditt was white. Mr. Conditt grew up as the quiet, socially awkward oldest child of a devout Christian family that held Bible study groups in their white clapboard house, where an American flag hangs from the front porch. After Mr. Conditt, 23, was identified on Wednesday as the serial bomber who killed two people and terrorized Texas capital, Mr. Conditts mother sent a text message to a friend, Donna Sebastian Harp. It said: Pray for our family. We are under attack a reference to a spiritual assault. Its a Christian-ese thing we say, Ms. Harp said. Pray: the situation is very serious. Governor Abbott told the television station KXAN that Mr. Conditt did not have a criminal record, had not served in the military and was unemployed. He said it appeared that Mr. Conditt had acted alone, but authorities had not definitively ruled out whether he had any accomplices. In 2012, Mr. Conditt hashed out some of his views on a blog that he created for a political science class while he was a student at Austin Community College. Jessica Vess, a college spokeswoman, said that Mr. Conditt had attended from 2010 to 2012 as a business administration major. Photo: AntonioGuillem/Getty Images/iStockphoto Amnesty International put out a report this week entitled #ToxicTwitter: Violence and abuse against women online. It analyzes what it is like to be a woman on Twitter and takes a closer look at the ways the platform fails to protect women against violence and abuse. Spoiler alert: Its all bad. The violence and abuse many women experience on Twitter has a detrimental effect on their right to express themselves equally, freely and without fear, the study says. Instead of strengthening womens voices, the violence and abuse many women experience on the platform leads women to self-censor what they post, limit their interactions, and even drives women off Twitter completely. To put it more bluntly, Amnesty International published a giant study detailing what most women who actively use Twitter could have already told you: Twitter can be a hostile and dangerous place if youre not a man. Conducted with 86 subjects over 14 months, the study is eight chapters long and details a number of instances in which women and nonbinary people faced hate speech, violence, and threats on Twitter. A womens-rights activist said she was told to drink floor polish after criticizing an actor in an Amazon ad. I get harassment as a woman and I get the extra harassment because of race and being a black woman. They will call white women a c*nt and theyll call me a n*gger c*nt. Whatever identity they can pick they will pick it and use it against you, journalist Imani Gandy said. Twenty-three percent of women surveyed in eight countries by Amnesty in 2017 said they had faced online abuse or harassment at least once. Over half of that percentage said their attacker was a stranger. Some of the things that have been put on Twitter about me have had people say they know where I live, Ive had people say that theyll be outside my work, Ive had people not just threaten me but also say things that, you know, are clearly veiled threats against my family, journalist Allison Morris said of the threats she had received. The case studies go on and on. The assertion that Twitter is consciously unengaged with human rights issues is an unfair representation not just of the facts, but of the ethos of our dedicated teams, and the core mission of the company, a Twitter representative told Select All. The studys final chapter offers Amnestys solutions to fixing Twitter for women. (Twitters representative told Select All the company agrees with many of the recommendations.) Suggestions include getting Twitter to be more transparent with data and information about the prevalence of violence on the platform. Another is fixing reporting structures to have consistent application and better response to complaints of violence and abuse. And having Twitter take a more active role in teaching users about how to use existing privacy and safety features think muting and blocking and keyword filtering for a better experience online. Decent suggestions Twitter might consider taking to heart the next time it decides to create a tone-deaf ad centered on female empowerment. Pretty sure any woman or nonbinary person would much prefer stricter enforcement of Twitters rules to a celebrity-filled commercial, no matter how good the spoken-word poem was. Update, March 21, 2018, 2:41 p.m.: This post has been updated to include a statement from Twitter. The full statement has been included below. Another sticking point in recent days was funding for a series of rail infrastructure projects in the New York City area known as the Gateway program, including a new tunnel under the Hudson River. Despite his New York roots, Mr. Trump zeroed in on Gateway and urged Republican leaders not to provide federal funds for it an apparent rebuke to Mr. Schumer, whose caucus the president has repeatedly accused of obstructionism. The spending bill does not include $900 million in funding for Gateway that had been included last year in House legislation. But according to a senior Senate Democratic aide, it includes hundreds of millions of dollars that could go toward the Gateway program, including funds that do not require the approval of Mr. Trumps Transportation Department. As Novembers midterm elections loom, the legislation also includes $380 million for grants to states to improve their election infrastructure and bolster election security. And although Congress has shown little appetite for passing significant gun control legislation in response to the mass shooting last month in Parkland, Fla., the spending bill includes a modest measure to improve reporting to the national background check system for gun purchases. It also includes a measure to provide grants to improve school safety. Congress approved a broad two-year budget deal last month that paved the way for this weeks legislation. That deal set overall spending levels, raising strict limits on military and domestic spending by a total of about $140 billion this year. The spending bill this week allocates the allowed spending among a vast array of federal programs. The bill is long overdue, coming almost halfway through the 2018 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. Since then, Congress has needed five stopgap spending measures to keep the government open. By snapping that streak of short-term patches, lawmakers would provide a dose of stability to federal agencies that have been left in limbo as Congress lurched from one stopgap measure to the next. Even with the spending bill unveiled, there is still some risk of a brief shutdown this weekend, as any one senator can stop the Senate from speeding up consideration of the bill to meet Fridays deadline. Last month, Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, did just that, causing an hourslong shutdown as he bemoaned the governments mounting debt. Mr. Nader tempted the fund-raiser, Mr. Broidy, with the prospect of more than $1 billion in contracts for his private security company, Circinus, and he helped deliver deals worth more than $200 million with the United Arab Emirates. He also flattered Mr. Broidy about how well you handle Chairman, a reference to Mr. Trump, and repeated to his well-connected friend that he told the effective rulers of both Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. about the Pivotal Indispensable Magical Role you are playing to help them. Mr. Naders cultivation of Mr. Broidy, laid out in documents provided to The New York Times, provides a case study in the way two Persian Gulf monarchies have sought to gain influence inside the Trump White House. Mr. Nader has been granted immunity in a deal for his cooperation with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, according to people familiar with the matter, and his relationship with Mr. Broidy may also offer clues to the direction of that inquiry. Mr. Nader has now been called back from abroad to provide additional testimony, one person familiar with the matter said this week. Mr. Muellers investigators have already asked witnesses about Mr. Naders contacts with top Trump administration officials and about his possible role in funneling Emirati money to Mr. Trumps political efforts, a sign that the investigation has broadened to examine the role of foreign money in the Trump administration. The documents contain evidence not previously reported that Mr. Nader also held himself out as intermediary for Saudi Arabias crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who met with Mr. Trump on Tuesday in the Oval Office at the beginning of a tour of the United States to meet with political and business leaders. A lawyer for Mr. Nader declined to comment. Two people close to Mr. Broidy said he had not been contacted by the special counsels investigators. In a statement, Mr. Broidy said that his efforts aimed to strengthen the national security of the United States, in full coordination with the U.S. government. He added, I have always believed strongly in countering both Iran and Islamic extremism, and in working closely with our friends in the Arab world in order to do so. Republicans and Democrats on the committee made clear that they expected more. When I listen to your testimony, I hear no sense of urgency to really get on top of this issue, said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine. Wednesdays session was the secretive committees first public hearing designed to scrutinize findings from its year-old investigation into Russias interference campaign. It followed the committees release on Tuesday of a set of recommendations for state and federal officials to shore up the ballot box. That effort appeared likely to get substantial resources on Wednesday, as congressional leaders completed a more than $1 trillion government funding bill that included hundreds of millions of dollars for election security. The bill, which is expected to pass later this week, includes $380 million for state grants to improve election infrastructure, as well as $307 million above what the Trump administration had requested for the F.B.I. that can be used to combat cyberattacks, election fraud and other crimes. Top federal officials have concluded that Russian hackers targeted election systems in 21 states and breached that of at least one, Illinois, during the last election cycle. No votes were changed, but the effort alongside a concerted Russian disinformation and hacking campaign exposed dangerous vulnerabilities in the voting systems and the governments ability to respond. American intelligence officials have warned that Russia considered its campaign to sow social and political divisions in 2016 a success, and is already meddling in the midterm elections. A central tool of the campaign fake social media accounts to spread propaganda and disinformation continues to be used unabated, the officials said. WASHINGTON The F.B.I. investigated Attorney General Jeff Sessions for possible perjury last year over congressional testimony in which he said he had no contacts with Russians, according to three people familiar with the case. In fact, Mr. Sessions later acknowledged, he had personally met the Russian ambassador to the United States during the campaign and was aware that George Papadopoulos, a campaign adviser, had developed Russian ties, too. F.B.I. agents were aware of both inaccuracies in real time. And last March, when Congress asked the F.B.I. to investigate the attorney general, agents began doing so, two of the people said. Andrew G. McCabe, the F.B.I.s deputy director at the time, authorized the investigation, the two people said. Mr. McCabe himself was recently fired for showing lack of candor in an internal investigation. Mr. Sessions rejected Mr. McCabes appeal and fired him hours before his retirement was to take effect, jeopardizing his pension. The investigation into Mr. Sessions began before Robert S. Mueller III was appointed special counsel to investigate Russia-related matters. Mr. Sessionss lawyer, Chuck Cooper, said no investigation is being conducted now. WASHINGTON President Trump indirectly criticized Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, on Wednesday for the continuing investigation into Russias 2016 campaign meddling, even as a former C.I.A. director said during a morning news show that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia may have compromising information on Mr. Trump. After a weekend of attacking Mr. Mueller against the advice of his own lawyers Mr. Trump picked up again in early morning tweets when he said he was quoting a former Harvard professor stating that Mr. Mueller should never have been appointed to be the special counsel to investigate Russias meddling in the 2016 election. That investigation has expanded into inquiries into Mr. Trumps aides and his own business dealings. I was opposed to the selection of Mueller to be Special Council, Mr. Trump wrote in a Twitter post that he attributed to a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, Alan M. Dershowitz. When President Trump met on Tuesday with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, a year after he first hosted the prince at the White House, something was missing. Women. Photos from Tuesdays meeting show that the dynamics at the table remained relatively unchanged since the last meeting, and persistently male. After years of American foreign policy that has pushed for human rights, such a stark absence of women and minorities could send a symbolic message to the ultraconservative country known for its oppression of women and religious minorities. Some in attendance on the American side: Vice President Mike Pence; Jared Kushner, the presidents son-in-law and senior adviser; and Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, joined an all-male Saudi delegation for a second consecutive year. John F. Kelly, the chief of staff; Rick Perry, the energy secretary; and Gary D. Cohn, the departing top economic adviser, also joined the president. When I arrive at my daughter and son-in-laws Brooklyn apartment on Thursdays, my 18-month-old granddaughter hurtles toward me with her still lurch-y gait, happy for our weekly date. While her parents work, we spend the day doing toddler stuff reading favorite books six times in a row, singing about spiders and stars, placing objects into containers and dumping them out again, going to the park, napping (baby, not Bubbe, alas). If were lucky, I spend half an hour with the whole family, once my daughter gets home, then head back to my place in New Jersey. The routine I call Bubbe Day (for the Yiddish word for grandmother) has come to feel so natural that I never stopped to consider whether it would have unfolded differently if my granddaughter had been a sons child, not a daughters. But it might well have. You hear this often: Paternal grandparents tread very carefully, mindful that a daughter-in-law might not appreciate their overtures or their frequent presence, anxious that she could limit access to their grandkids. DAKAR, Senegal Dozens of schoolgirls from the northern Nigerian community of Dapchi were returned early Wednesday morning, dropped off by the same group of Boko Haram militants who kidnapped them more than a month ago as they offered a stern warning to never go back to school again. The surprising turn of events was greeted with joy from parents whose daughters were safely returned, but the relief was tempered by suspicions that several girls had died while in the hands of the militants. At least one is apparently still being held. Jauro Usman, a resident of Dapchi who is close to many of the parents of the kidnapped girls, said those who had been reunited were very, very happy. Boko Haram came themselves and dropped our daughters, he said. The return of the girls might wind up as a major propaganda coup for Boko Haram as villagers had been outraged at the way Nigerian officials had handled the girls capture, and some questioned why the military did not launch a rescue operation. NAIROBI, Kenya More than 40 African countries signed a free trade pact on Wednesday that the nations hope will fulfill a long-held dream of greater economic integration on the continent. But among the holdouts are two of Africas biggest economies, Nigeria and South Africa, raising concerns about whether the agreement can make good on its promises. The African Continental Free Trade Area, which has been in the works for two years, aims to unite participating countires into a single trading market that would be one of the largest free trade zones in the world since the World Trade Organization was created in 1995. Of Africas 55 countries, 44 signed the pact. Amongst African states in general, there has long been a hankering for a trade agreement that transcends national boundaries, said John Campbell, a senior fellow and Africa expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. In Africa more than any other part of the world, national boundaries are seen as artificial, essentially as a colonial imposition. Judging from the survivors, the victims of Wednesdays bombing were Sunnis, both Pashtuns and Tajiks, as well as Hazaras. Although the Sakhi shrine is mainly a Shiite institution, it had been regarded as a safe place because it was heavily guarded after the previous attacks on Hazaras. It had been a popular venue on Wednesday with many ethnic groups. Nowruz is the beginning of the year on the Persian calendar, but it also serves as a celebration of the end of winter, the first day of spring and the beginning of the school year. Its associated with outdoor festivities and picnics, usually with many children present; it is also a traditional time to try on new clothes, and many dress in their finest to promenade in the city. In the courtyard of the hospital, one family arrived to find three members among the dead: an older woman in a pink traditional Hazara dress; a young man named Sajad, already in a body bag; and a boy of about 4 or 5. The boy wore a new red shirt, and his father, wearing old clothes, lifted him in his arms. He seemed too shocked for words or tears as he laid him in an ambulance beside Sajad, his older brother. Another relative came and shook the young mans corpse, saying, Sajad, please stand up, why wont you talk to me? What will I say to your mother? A fashionably dressed young woman, about 22 years old, her hands decorated with elaborate henna tattoos, mourned an older brother; doctors lifted a corner of the sheet covering him so she could identify him. She cried so hard that she ran out of tears, and began tearing her hair and scratching her face. Lala jan, she said, using the affectionate term for an older brother, I want to come with you I dont want to be alive any longer. Many of those in the courtyard were furious, yelling at journalists to leave, and denouncing political leaders. Doctors joined in the anger, yelling for blood, for more ambulances, for medicine. Many in the crowd repeatedly chanted Death to Hekmatyar, referring to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the insurgent leader who last year made peace with the government, but is widely remembered as the Butcher of Kabul for his Hezb-i-Islami groups relentless shelling of Kabul in the 1990s. There is no indication that his group was involved in Wednesdays bombing. Mustafas mother spent her ire on President Ashraf Ghani, with a maternal curse: May God kill your own son so you will understand what it means to lose one. Illustration: Benjamin Bours Joseph O. Baker, associate professor of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at East Tennessee State University, is the co-author of the 2011 book Paranormal America, an exploration of the belief in UFOs, ghosts, Bigfoot, and beyond. Here, Baker explains where our schema of aliens comes from. Why, when we think of aliens, do they all look the same three feet tall, gray or green, big black eyes? It didnt used to be that way. UFO narratives became much more popular in the 1950s and 60s, and during that era the descriptions of the aliens would be almost humanlike in form. If you see drawings that some of the so-called contactees made, the aliens almost look like Swedish people very attractive blond types with shining eyes. Now, if Im in class, and I ask a student to go draw an alien on the board, they all draw the little gray abductor. The abductee narrative really took over pop culture in the 1970s and 1980s, and after that, theres this homogenization of the public perception. What happened in the 1970s and 1980s that made the little gray abductor such a dominant trope in these fantasies? The short answer is media stories, TV, movies about abductions. Those came partly from peoples experiences in particular Travis Walton, whom they made Fire in the Sky about. That was a really influential movie. That representation diffused that narrative more widely. Betty and Barney Hill are another pair of famous abductees who put their story out there. As far as why these folks were putting their stories out there then and not reporting them earlier, thats hard to say. In terms of why that caught on, I think there is something to be said for a lack of faith in government and institutions in that era, and that coincided with UFOs rise in popularity. The lack of trust in the government, and the idea that the government knows something about this those two things went together, and you can see it in the public reaction post-Vietnam, to Watergate, all that stuff. Thats speculation, though; its hard to prove that. Even those little gray abductors look pretty human, when you think about it four limbs, heads with eyes. Why do we have such a hard time imagining radically different forms of life? Were the people doing the projecting here. Much the same way people do with God people anthropomorphize God, when really what sense does it make for a supernatural entity to have a gender or be humanoid? I think its a reflection of the fact that humans are the ones doing the imagining, so theyre making this in their own image typically. Anthropomorphized supernatural entities tend to be more compelling to us. On the topic of abduction, is there a reason so many of these stories feature probing? Is probing a predominantly male fantasy/story? Is there an equivalent female trope? Women report being probed in various ways too. A lot of times in these stories there is a sexual element. Men will report having sperm extraction, and women will report having eggs extracted. It kind of goes both ways. The probe part of the abduction narrative took over in some sense because it tends to be the most salacious aspect of these stories. Its become almost become shorthand for alien abduction. But the stories of abduction among believers are really diverse, and usually probing is only one small part of it. There are still more people who claim positive forms of contact than claim negative forms of contact, despite the fact that the negative abduction narrative is the one that predominates in popular culture. Reasons to Believe This Computer Scientist Thinks Hes Figured Out How to Talk to Aliens What do some of those positive abduction narratives sound like? They tend to be akin to religion in some ways. Inside the UFO subculture, a lot of times contactee narratives fit this enlightenment model, in which beings of higher enlightenment show people the errors of humanity, or help them reach a higher plane of consciousness. They oftentimes have a religious feel to them. In contrast, the abduction narratives are usually perceived as a negative experience, and when people talk about those, theyre mainly trying to prove to other people that their trauma is real. Are there any conclusions youve been able to draw about the type of people who believe? Men are more likely to believe and people with lower levels of income are more likely to believe. Interestingly, though the stereotype is that its tinfoil-hat wearers, that doesnt hold at all. We dont really find strong patterns by education, and if we do, theres usually a slight positive effect. Its not ignorance, and its not low education. One of the other strongest predictors is not participating as strongly in forms of organized religion. In some sense, theres a bit of a clue there about whats going on with belief its providing an alternative belief system. If you look at religious-service attendance, there will be a strong negative effect there for belief in UFOs. Ive heard that sightings are way down in the smartphone era, when people presumably dont take a story as proof enough what do we know about the prevalence of belief in UFOs and aliens? And about the frequency of sightings over the decades? There are only a few surveys that asked subjects about witnessing UFOs in the 80s and 90s, but as far as Ive seen, rates of reported sightings and rate of belief have been pretty stable. The 2005 Baylor Religion survey found that 26 percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement Some UFOs are probably spaceships from other worlds. The 2014 Chapman Survey of American Fears found that 42 percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement Some UFOs are really spaceships from another planet. In the CSAF survey, they didnt offer a neutral/dont know option, so that drove up the numbers there. My sense is that stability is actually the answer once you remove question-modifier effects. Its true that its easier to hoax things now than it used to be. I would think that an increased availability of videos, if it was going to do anything, might lead to more belief, but from most of what Ive seen, it looks more like stasis. Most alien-encounter stories give aliens one of two motives either they want something from us, or they want to kill us. What does that say about us? It shows that we have a high level of perceived self-importance. The idea that in this vast universe, these beings sought us out in this tiny corner of the spiral arm of the Milky Way to come learn something from us is a bit flattering. So it also serves the role for us of saying were an important part of the universe. In some of the more negative stories, aliens treat us like were in a zoo, and I suppose that downplays our importance some. The standard abduction story subordinates us and makes us feel inferior. I wonder if part of the reason the most popular image of an alien is three feet tall is so it feels less threatening. If you see the way people describe the grays, theyre sadistic little bastards. They may be little, but you probably dont want to trifle with them. That said, one of the strongest predictors you can find for believers is their extreme distrust of the government. To the extent that Trump undermines the legitimacy of the government, that might actually increase belief in UFOs. If more people distrust government, thats only going to be a boon for UFO subculture. *A version of this article appears in the March 19, 2018, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now! SEOUL, South Korea President Moon Jae-in of South Korea said on Wednesday that he and President Trump could sit down for a three-way summit meeting with Kim Jong-un if their individual meetings with the North Korean leader on denuclearizing his country proceed well in the coming weeks. Mr. Moon and Mr. Kim are planning an inter-Korean summit in late April at Peace House, a South Korean conference hall inside Panmunjom, the so-called truce village that straddles the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ, separating the two Koreas. That meeting is expected to be followed by a planned Trump-Kim summit meeting by May. If that meeting takes place, Mr. Trump will be the first-ever sitting American president to meet a North Korean leader; Washington and Pyongyang are still technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War was halted with a truce, rather than a peace treaty. While presiding over a meeting Wednesday of government officials preparing for the inter-Korean summit, Mr. Moon attached great significance to the venue for his coming meeting with Mr. Kim. Taiwan is functionally independent, with its own Constitution, military, democratic elections, currency and customs regime. Republic of China passports carried by Taiwanese are accepted by immigration authorities around the world. On the surface, the Taiwan Travel Act does not appear to change much. It offers only a sense of Congress that the United States government should encourage visits between officials from the United States and Taiwan at all levels. But despite a highly polarized climate in Washington, the bill received remarkable bipartisan support, passing unanimously in both the House and the Senate in the face of a vigorous campaign by the Chinese ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai. Mr. Cui took the extraordinary step of sending letters to members of Congress threatening severe consequences for the relationship between China and the United States if the measure passed, The Washington Post reported in October. Relations between the worlds two largest economies were shaken in the first days of the Trump era, in December 2016, when Mr. Trump, then the president-elect, accepted a congratulatory phone call from Ms. Tsai. After becoming president, though, Mr. Trump reiterated Americas one China policy, which acknowledges but does not recognize Beijings claim on Taiwan, and sought Mr. Xis help in pressing North Korea over its nuclear weapons program. But Mr. Trump has nominated Mike Pompeo, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, who is widely viewed as pro-Taiwan and tough on China, to succeed Rex W. Tillerson as secretary of state. And the confirmation of Randall Schriver, who is also seen as pro-Taiwanese, as assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs also suggested a closer and more open relationship with Taiwan. Ms. Tsai said Wednesday night that she was grateful to the Trump administration for pushing ahead with the Taiwan Travel Act. SYDNEY, Australia China has denied entry to a Chinese-born Australian who was traveling to Shanghai with his mother to return his fathers ashes to the land of his birth, he said on Wednesday. John Hugh, 51, who has been an outspoken critic of the Chinese Communist Partys efforts to influence Australian politics, said he was sent back to Sydney soon after his flight landed in Shanghai on Tuesday night. He said he was met by Chinese officials before disembarking and told that he would be put on the next flight back to Australia. I asked what the reason was and they just said, You should know, he said. Mr. Hugh, a former city councilor from Parramatta in western Sydney, surmised that he had been refused entry as punishment for his support for a new espionage bill intended to regulate foreign influence in Australia, and for his connection to a new book about the Chinese Communist Partys efforts to infiltrate Australian politics, business and academia. PARIS The soaring 19th century train stations that grace French cities are an iconic image of the nation. Even Frances vaunted high-speed TGV is more than a train; it is a symbol of French planning and ambition, a riposte to an American vision of individualism embodied in the automobile. But if Frances young president, Emmanuel Macron, has made one thing clear, it is that he is not afraid to shake up France and take on its venerable institutions. Now it is the turn of the heavily subsidized and deeply indebted French rail system. Mr. Macron says he wants to erase the railway workers special status, which gives them more generous benefits than almost any other workers, including a guarantee of early retirement. In doing so, he has set himself a new and formidable challenge in his expanding campaign to reshape Frances society and economy, which started last year with a law that made it easier for private companies to hire and fire workers, a near revolution for France. DUISBURG, Germany As a private tour of the museums contemporary art exhibition began, there was little to differentiate the elderly visitors from any others. Gazing up at a copper sculpture of a large tree, a former housewife, murmured Thats nice! Beautiful, a retired industrial mechanic agreed. Maybe it will shake. Walking around the room, another woman pointed to the copper cones that capped the trees long, twisting branches. Did they play music? The former housewife drew up close to one, to say hello. These visitors came from many walks of life, but most were residents of a local adult care home for dementia patients in Essen. And they were at the museum participating in a program for people with dementia. Sybille Kastner, who runs educational programs at the Lehmbruck Museum here in Duisberg and is a pioneer in programs for people with dementia, gently brought the group together. She pressed a button, and the tree shook. As the room filled with murmuring voices, Ms. Kastner explained that each of the copper cones played a different story of sorrow. VIENNA As they gathered last week, perhaps for the last time, diplomats from countries that brokered the Iran nuclear accord publicly and uniformly declared it was working despite a death watch over the deal in Washington. But behind the closed doors of the chandeliered room, complaints spilled forth about President Trumps threats to tear up the agreement. Iranian envoys said the warnings from Washington had scared away investors who had been expected to bolster the countrys economy after the deal was negotiated in 2015, according to participants. The American delegation countered that though the deal had effectively limited Tehrans nuclear program, it had failed to curb Irans support for regional terrorism. And when he emerged from the meeting, Brian H. Hook, the chief American representative to the talks, called the nuclear issue important but it is just one aspect of the threats from the Iranian regime. Even the idea of a standstill transition was initially resisted by Mrs. May, who, once reconciled, insisted on calling it an implementation period instead. Analysts struggle to identify concessions made by the other side. Seemingly the only one of any substance is to limit the time the European Court of Justice will help adjudicate post-Brexit disputes on the rights of European Union citizens living in Britain. Though David Davis, Britains Brexit secretary, trumpeted on Monday the fact that Britain would be able to negotiate and sign non-European trade deals during the transition, if not to implement them, experts were unimpressed. Charles Grant, director of the Center for European Reform, a research institute, describes that as a token, since prospects of such talks being completed during the transition period were remote. I dont think thats a real concession, he said. Mr. Menon believes that Britains divorce financial settlement could have been worse, but added that in general the European Union has got what it wanted. Much of this is the legacy of Mrs. Mays decision to invoke Article 50 the exit clause of the European Unions treaty before she was ready (though after she had laid down red lines that have faded away in some cases). That set a two-year deadline until departure, instantly putting Britain under pressure. Since the European Union had also wanted to resolve Brexit quickly, Britain relinquished the leverage that threatening delay might have offered. London seems on track to repeat its error by agreeing to a time-limited 21-month transition, rather than one that can be extended. During this time, the detail of future trade ties should be finalized and, with the clock ticking, the advantage will again be with the European side as another cliff edge looms one more damaging to the British than the continental side. Israeli news organizations speculated on Wednesday about why the government lifted the secrecy about the operation. The release also prompted a frenzied, if belated, public fight over who was responsible for the operation chiefly between former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his defense minister at the time, Ehud Barak. Increasingly urgent appeals by Israeli journalists had forced military censors to reconsider the ban. And former officials pointed to the publication this week of Mr. Olmerts memoir, which includes his account of the operation. Mr. Baraks memoir is expected to come out in May. Revisiting the episode may help rehabilitate the reputations of some of the protagonists, particularly Mr. Olmert, who resigned from office in 2008 in disgrace. Already blamed for what many Israelis saw as an unsuccessful war in Lebanon in 2006, he left under a cloud of criminal investigations and was later convicted of corruption charges. He served 16 months in jail before his release last year. In excerpts from his book published in the newspaper Yediot Ahronot on Wednesday, Mr. Olmert accused Mr. Barak, who became defense minister in June 2007, of seeking to delay the attack on the reactor even if that meant waiting until after it had become hot, or operational. At that point, any strike could have led to radioactive contamination of a large area. Mr. Olmert contended that Mr. Barak believed Mr. Olmert would soon have to resign, and that Mr. Barak could then carry out the strike himself and reap all the glory. Yediot Ahronots publishing house is publishing Mr. Olmerts book. Mr. Barak denied any such motivation in Israeli media interviews. Describing the atmosphere in Mr. Olmerts security cabinet as one of hysteria, he said his interest had been in making sure the operation was properly planned and that contingencies were in place in case war broke out. Illustration: Benjamin Bours In January, Stephen Wolfram the computer-scientist, part-time epistemologist, and author of both A New Kind of Science and the Wolfram Language, a universal programming language that (among other things) informed the alien communication in the movie Arrival wrote an exceedingly long blog post about how best to communicate with aliens. It was called Showing Off to the Universe: Beacons for the Afterlife of Our Civilization. In March, Tim Urban of waitbutwhy.com called him up to talk about it. Im very excited, this is very fun to get to talk to you. You know, you kind of created a universal language you might be able to communicate with aliens with. I dont talk to many people who have done that. Indeed. But I have talked to a few people recently about the Fermi paradox, including Anders Sandberg at Oxfords Future of Humanity Institute, who recently co-authored a really fascinating paper about how when you run a simulation of all the possible outputs of the Drake equation, using this Monte Carlo technique, you end up with the conclusion that theres a substantial probability that were alone in the Milky Way. Oh, I did see some mention of this, but I think I saw it in New Scientist. Yeah. Which Ive subscribed to for 50 years, but my main conclusion is if I read it in New Scientist, it probably wont happen. Reasons to Believe 13 Reasons to Believe Aliens Are Real Okay, well, I guess thats good because it freaked me out a little bit. Ive written about the Fermi paradox and have always grouped expert theories into two broad camps: There are those who say, Look, we havent heard from other civilizations because there probably arent any out there, because we would have seen some evidence otherwise like Nick Bostrom and a number of others And then the second camp that says, There are almost definitely many other advanced civilizations out there, there are just plenty of other explanations for why we wouldnt see evidence of them. And this paper was interesting because it kind of was saying both camps are legitimate. Not only might we be alone in the Milky Way; we might be the only intelligent life, or even the only life at all in the observable universe. This is what the simulation suggests, but at the same time the median result that the simulation spits out is that the galaxy is teeming with life. So it very much allows for both possibilities. I think the main difficulty with all of these things is the definitional one. That is you talk about life, you talk about intelligence; what are those things abstractly? We know the specific example that we have historically been exposed to: life on Earth, human intelligence. The question is, when you generalize away from that, what do you get to? In my work in basic science, one of the main conclusions has been that the core element of both life and intelligence is sophisticated computation. And it turns out sophisticated computation is actually a quite ubiquitous thing. One of the things that Im fond of quoting is the statement The weather has a mind of its own. What does this mean? What is mind? What is the abstract kind of thing thats like mind? Its the ability to do sophisticated computation. Thats something that exists in the weather, just as it exists in our brains, just as it exists in lots of living systems. And then the question is, whats different between the weather and its sort of mindlike thing and our human intelligence? The fundamental answer to that is our human intelligence has its particular cultural, civilizational history and the weather doesnt. Right. People turn to start saying, What is intelligence? Whats special about, for example, human intelligence? I think this is a moment, with respect to intelligence, thats very much like the moment 400 years ago or something, with Copernicus and so on, where were asking, Okay, is our Earth at the center of the universe? Is there something extremely special about the Earth? And theres nothing else like it in the universe, so to speak. We kind of have this assumption that our particular form of intelligence, with its particular history, is somehow the only, the best, the definition of intelligence, so to speak. And I just think this isnt true. Now when we ask, Okay, have we seen extraterrestrial intelligence? okay, what might that mean? Right what exactly is that question asking? Well my own suspicion is that the first form of nonhuman-aligned intelligence that were getting exposed to is artificial intelligence. My guess about how things will develop historically is well get more and more used to the idea of AI and nonhuman intelligence and so on. Eventually, well get used to the idea that there are these kind of nonhuman intelligences embodied in whats possible in the computational universe and what we can use for AI. Then well realize that actually lots of things out there in the universe are intelligence-like things. And well eventually realize the resolution of the Fermi paradox is, yeah, in some sense theres intelligence in lots of places in the universe; it just hasnt happened to be historically aligned with our particular intelligence. Now we might turn out to be lucky in a sense, and it might turn out that in the space of possible intelligences, there are some whose history is sufficiently similar to ours that we can kind of point to a lot of these details of human intelligence and say, Yeah, thats a replication of that. But its hard to know what this kind of space of possible intelligences looks like how far apart the different things in it are. And thats my feeling about the resolution of the apparent paradoxes theres intelligence in lots of places in the universe, its just that it doesnt happen to be in detail aligned with our idea of intelligence. It sounds like what youre doing is youre zooming out really far. When you zoom out, youre saying that even life as we define it is not actually a clear-cut thing. Its not a binary universe where theres lots of dead stuff and then theres this special thing that we call life. And life has the capacity for intelligence, while dead things do not. Youre saying that life is just another system that can exhibit some kind of sophisticated computation and that were very Earth-life-centric when we think about this problem. Lets take life as an example. How do we define it? You look at the historical efforts to define life; first of all, it was Things which can move themselves must be alive. Okay, well then, with all kinds of steam engines and other kinds of technology thats not a good definition. Then there are definitions like Life means certain kinds of organic molecules; those turn out to be synthesizable, and they turn out to even exist in some cases in interstellar space and so on. Then there are the definitions like decreasing entropy or self-replication. Self-replication, for example; we know its easy to make programs that replicate themselves. Its even easier to make things that replicate themselves well, certainly in the digital domain its particularly easy to make things that replicate themselves. But theres nothing tremendously special about this feature of self-replication. But people do seem to have some intuitive sense of what it means for something to be alive, dont they? Even if its a sense that changes over time? If you present somebody with, Heres two things, which one of them is alive? For us, given the history of life on Earth, its pretty easy to answer that question. You go look and see if it has RNA in it, see if it has cell membranes in it. Those things are, for us, the pragmatic, practical definition of life. But I dont think we believe that the essence of life is RNA, is that specific molecule. And so as you say, one is thinking about zooming out to figure out what is the abstract definition of life. I remember when I was a kid and the first Mars landers were going out. One of the big questions was, Was there going to be life on Mars? And there were little things that scooped up soil from the Martian surface and then they did various tests on them. And I think the one that was kind of the finest and best test for life was pretty much you feed the soil sugar and you see whether it metabolizes. Now I dont think that the essence of what we might reasonably call life is that it happens to like eating sugar, so to speak. That seems a very disappointing conclusion. If thats the thing were aiming for, if thats the thing theyre concentrating on, that doesnt seem like really a suitable, general definition that its likely to cover things that are lifelike out there in the universe. You could even look at the whole thing as a continuum its all just atoms and energy doing stuff. And atoms and energy do stuff in stars and planets and gas clouds, dictated by these fundamental forces, and then they also sometimes form what we call biology. And then the biology sometimes forms what we would call artificial intelligence. And if you take a big step back, its just all one thing. Its atoms doing what atoms do. But I still think that leaves an open Fermi paradox, which is just asking the question, Well, okay, but how about life like us? How about other intelligent stuff that we would recognize as biology that has something that we would call self-awareness that is Youre sliding down a slippery slope there because you bring in self-awareness and you think perhaps that thats kind of the key thing. Ive studied a lot of simple computational systems. One of my favorite types is called cellular automata, which is sort of arrays of black and white cells that follow simple rules. And you look at what they do, and they do very complicated things. And as you start talking about them and trying to explain to somebody, Well, this is what it does. Its got this thing, its got that thing. You pretty quickly find yourself giving a very humanlike explanation for what its doing: It wants to do this. Its trying to do that. You kind of realize that you are, at least implicitly, attributing a certain kind of free will to the system. And when you talk about all these kinds of things consciousness, self-awareness, free will those are slippery things to define. But I dont think that theres a definition of them that is sufficiently abstract, so it would apply to these other sophisticated computational systems. Now, imagine radio signals coming from the cosmos and ask yourself, Are they intelligent or not? What would it take for you to be convinced that they were intelligent? A little more than 100 years ago, Tesla [and] Marconi were kind of radio pioneers. And they were listening to natural radio for the first time. And I think Tesla in particular found that he could hear these weird sounds when converted from radio coming from the cosmos, so to speak. And his immediate assumption was that must be signaling by the Martians. It sounds complicated enough, it must have an intelligent origin; it must be the Martians. And it turns out what he was hearing were features of the magnetosphere and the ionosphere that are, in a sense, what we would say today are pure physics. When you listen to them, you say,What do those sound like? And one of the obvious things that they sound like is they sound like whale songs. Even in the case of whales, its very unclear what the intelligence level or the communication level or whatever of whale songs actually is. And I think thats a good example of where you could say, Well, lets talk Fermi paradox on Earth. Why isnt there more intelligence on Earth? Well, are we sure there isnt? What exactly is going on with whales? Those creatures dont happen to build skyscrapers and electric cars and so on, but thats a fairly recent thing in human civilization and I think wed still count ourselves intelligent before we had all the modern skyscrapers and so on. So I think its a really tricky thing. Its very clear what we mean by humanlike intelligence, at least at this point in history. Humanlike intelligence may itself evolve over time and may even be as we get more connected to AI and more digital and so on it may end up being almost unrecognizable at some point in the future. Or it might become just an unimportant distinction. When I think about cellular automata, I think that when you really start boiling down the physical world, it seems like it ends up becoming indistinguishable from the computational world in a way; where at the very core, the physical world is just elementary particles instructed by the rule of the forces of physics to do something thats based on whats happening in their neighborhood. And it suddenly starts to feel like if you boil down a human, you end up with something that is no more alive than a sequence of cellular automata. Is that fair? Yes, a whole lot of thats right. But in a sense all thats saying is were all fated to be part of the universe with its particular laws of physics. We, by our luck or something else, have been thrown into this particular universe in which we happen to live. And it has certain attributes. The fact is that what we understand from the structure of computation and so on is that within that physical universe, we can construct essentially virtual worlds that behave according to any other rule that one might find in the computational universe. Just like we can program a computer to do any kind of computation, we can similarly program our universe to effectively do any kind of computation. It like our universe is just one program. Our physical universe is a subset of the far more vast computational universe. What we realize is that in a sense, ubiquitous computation is ubiquitous; its kind of a blank slate. Theres nothing notable about it in this sense. So when we think about the human condition and humans and so on, what we realize is actually many of the details of human condition are what we should really care about because theyre whats special about us. Its not this thing where we say, Look, the thing thats really special about us is we have intelligence and nothing else does. Thats not right. The thing thats special about us is endless details of our particular history that wont be shared by anything else in the universe. Its inconceivable. Probabilities are vastly staked against any repetition of the detailed history thats led to our particular human intelligence and so on. This leads into the main topic for this conversation, which is that you wrote a very long, very considered post on your website about how we might, theoretically, try to communicate with aliens. I want to get into that, but first, lets discuss why we would even want to do this. Why is this mission important to try to communicate and send out time capsules and capture information about us? I think its having pride about what weve achieved and building a monument to it. Thats as important as it is to imagine that at some point, some alien is gonna pick it up and do something with it. Its like, Why were the pyramids built? Well, it was probably in large part as an exercise for the time, more so than that they thought this is gonna be something to transmit to the afterlife. Its something which is an interesting thing for our current civilization to imagine: What is the essence of what weve produced and how can we imagine communicating it? Im kind of particularly amused by for example, Elon Musks car going into launching his car into space, because that is so extremely aligned with the notion of grave goods from ancient Egypt or ancient China or something. Its really charming. Its literally this concept of grave goods, where youre taking things from your everyday life and youre burying them with you. In this case, youre sending them out into the cosmos. Capturing who we are and sending it outward is just as much an emotional thing as it is anything else. We happen to be attached to this information. We think its important to us. And it makes us sad to consider it just being extinguished from the record. And so maybe we dont need a better reason than that. We would like this information to be preserved, even if we dont end up being preserved. And the questions you ponder in your post are what exactly we should be trying to communicate and how we could actually get that information across effectively. And you concluded that, even though you yourself have written a whole language to use to communicate, that we might not actually do better than sending cryogenically preserved humans, which, as you pointed out, is a lot like what the Egyptians thought they were doing. Right. And thats because so many other approaches have problems with them, both in the content of what we might send out and the method were using to communicate that content. Lets start with the first issue what exactly is it that we would want to say to the rest of the universe if we had the chance? People have often proposed that we communicate math, since they view it as universal but as you point out, if youre just letting them know one plus one equals two, what are you actually communicating? Right, because what do you learn about the originators of the message one plus one equals two? For example, we have lots of tablets, Babylonian mathematical tablets. And what do we learn from those? The thing we learn is how much math the Babylonians knew, but once youve got a fix on how much math the Babylonians knew, every new tablet gives you no new information, because its telling you a bunch of arithmetic facts, which are not special for the Babylonians, so to speak. I think the thing to realize is that in the computational universe, we in our particular history of our civilization have followed a particular path. There are an infinite number of possible paths that we couldve followed. We understand the particular path that weve followed, and you could imagine some other civilization in quotes somewhere that followed a different path. And to them, our path would be quite as mysterious as the paths that these systems like the neural networks were building and so on take. Its connected, I think, to your ideas about computational irreducibility. In our day-to-day lives, there are a lot of examples of ongoing processes that follow a consistent pattern that allows us to use math to see how things will play out in the future. If we know a fixed growth rate on an investment, thats computationally reducible, so its easy for us to plug t = 30 into an equation and see what the investment will have grown to 30 years from now. But in the natural universe, things dont tend to boil down to consistent, repeating patterns they tend to be, as you say, irreducibly computational. You mentioned the weather, which is an example of something thats not computationally reducible. You can ask the smartest person in the world what the weather will be like on a particular Thursday 100,000 years from now, but theyre not going to be able to get there with math youre gonna have to go through 100,000 of weather patterns, step by step, a few days at a time, without making any mistakes along the way. In theory, a powerful enough computer might be able to do that, but it would take a tremendous amount of computation. Thats right. I think the thing to realize is at some level, computational irreducibility seems disappointing because it means that even if you have the best theory in the world, you cant predict everything. But it also is kind of very satisfying because it means that if you look at the evolution of human civilization, or any one of a whole lot of different processes that correspond to sophisticated computations, you dont just say, Oh, you dont really need to do that computation. You dont need to live through all of that, you can just jump to the end and say this is the answer. Theres something actually irreducibly achieved by going through those steps of evolution. By actually living through it, so to speak. So it might seem intuitive to us that if you know enough about the Big Bang and you know exactly how the earliest particles were moving, you can start to find a rule and you can just apply that rule forward and enter the current year as the time variable and it will spit out the universe as it is now, which would include all of the details of human civilization. And your point is that because of computational irreducibility, its like the weather where you cant actually do that. The only way to actually discover whats on step x is to just go through all the steps to get there. You have to just live through it and actually see what is currently here to understand what would have ended up here. So, by communicating to aliens the specifics of what happened here on Earth what this program, this physical universe program, has outputted in this particular location we actually tell them something both unique to us and something they dont know. Its something they have no way to know without a grand universe simulator. And when it comes to simulating the whole physical universe, were obviously kind of out of luck because we have to build that simulator in the physical universe and it doesnt get to outrun itself. Right. The fact is, this is beginning to seem obvious to us. That conclusion is beginning to seem obvious to us. But its kind of interesting that for the last 300 years, that conclusion would be, Oh my gosh, that cant possibly be right. Because the basic idea of exact science that came from Galileo and Newton and people like that 300 years ago was actually, you can write down a mathematical equation and just be able to jump to the answer. So as far as what we might want to communicate to extraterrestrial life, the valuable thing we can tell them is about the particulars of us and our history. You could have the most sophisticated species, they could be controlling the energy of their whole galaxy, and we still have something they cant get. Thats right. And that brings us to the second quandary here, which is about how we communicate this information to extraterrestrial life. You write about how we need to somehow form a language with whomever were communicating with. And once we have a common language that they can understand, we can suddenly tell them everything. We can send them the contents of Wikipedia or Wolfram Alpha, or we can send them the contents of every book, and they can, with the language, now learn everything that we would ever want them to learn about us. So the challenge is coming up with some kind of language that can work. But what is language? What is the point of language? If you have a brain, maybe its a neural net, maybe its an actual biological brain and youre trying to communicate something that brain knows to some other brain. Well, if these brains were exactly, precisely similarly constructed; maybe you could just do a brain dump. Move the information just bit by bit to the other brain. That probably wouldnt work because the other brain already has a different state from different experiences that its had. You dont get to just do bit-for-bit copying of information like that, brain-to-brain, so to speak. You kind of have to communicate things at a somewhat higher level. When you walk down the street, you dont want to have to say there are ten-to-the-26th atoms that are arranged in this particular way, and theyre doing this particular thing, because what you want to do is zoom out and make this more symbolic statement about whats going on. Right. So Ive spent a large part of my life building this thing they call Wolfram Language, which is a symbolic representation of things in the world and things that humans care about doing in the world. And in practice, Wolfram Language, which powers Wolfram Alpha, which powers things like Siri and so on; its in practice used by lots of people to Its been used to discover and invent lots and lots of things over the past 30 years where basically its humans are describing in Wolfram Language at a high level what ultimately can get automatically done by computers. Its actually rather easy to capture all possible computations but at sort of the lowest level, but what we want to capture is at a high level, the kinds of computations that humans in the present time and civilization, present time in history and so on, are interested in. And so, the goal there is to have a precise representation of lots of things that we humans care about doing. And one of the things thats important, then, is that thats something that can readily transport those complete ideas and goals and so on because its a precise, symbolic language that you can execute the same way. It just has particular rules for executing it. So if we decided we want to communicate using the Wolfram Language, how would we physically transmit that to them? Youre working with the Arch Mission, where they want to send information on these little quartz discs. But how would an intelligent life know something is on the disc and be able to read it? Those are really good questions. I mean the fact is that even when you say, Know something is there. What does know mean in this sense? If you have a big arrow that says, Look here. This is the thing you should care about. I think thats honestly pretty hopeless. So lets imagine that we have something that we can represent thats sort of the crystallization of our civilization and put it out in the cosmos and it gets found by some other thing that we might recognize as sort of an intelligence-like thing. And then that intelligence-like thing goes on and it What would it be? If we were to see what was happening, what would make us say, Oh, great, they got it. They understood what was going on. Well if a similar kind of species was so smart that they saw this disc, they said this looks like something that must have been sent from This must have been intentionally created. And theyre advanced enough to figure out how to read whats on the disc. And then one day theyre putting on Shakespeare plays on their version of Broadway because they have all the texts on the disc. They have absorbed it, theyre listening to our music, theyre arguing about our philosophy, theyre debating our history. Wouldnt we say that succeeded? Well, okay, so heres sort of a counter to that; which is weve been transmitting radio for 100 years, roughly. Somewhere out there in the universe the Lucy show is its been what, 50-something years, so its 50 light-years away. Theres probably some cloud of ionized gas where atoms in it are jumping around at least a tiny bit to correspond to the pixels or the scan lines or something in the I Love Lucy show or some such other thing. Now, the question is does that mean they got that soap opera, so to speak? Or is that just a physical process where the radio wave goes and it impinges on this plasma and its doing this particular thing? Well, its a little hard to know. Thats, again, a slippery slope because you could say, Well, this thing that is Its a human effect on the natural world and the human effect on the natural world has the natural world respond in some complicated way to that human effect. Does that mean the natural world understood the humans input? Or is it just that we say, Well, lets take it apart. Its just a natural process, its just operating going into physics. You could do the same for us for this conversation. Yes, somebody could look from the outside and say, Are these guys communicating? Or is it just the sound waves are turning into bit patterns and theyre coming out of the other end and then thats affecting neurons in this brain and electrochemistry is going on and so on. Its all just physics. Theres nothing happening here. No communication is happening, its just physics. How do we distinguish that from something where were talking about it now? Now the one place where there is perhaps some distinction is, you do have to reach this threshold of sophisticated computation when all thats happening is pure parroting of what goes on. The sound wave is propagating through the air, and its just the compression wave is at this place and it moves to that place thats a sufficiently simple process that I dont think one would say reaches this threshold of universal computation. You would say, No, no. There isnt anything. Thats not intelligence by any definition. But theres plenty that does meet that threshold. A lots of things in the natural world, in the computational universe, reach that level of equivalent computational sophistication. And you might think theres this whole hierarchy of computational sophistication There are these systems down here that are almost smart and then there are these systems that are a bit smarter and a bit smarter, and then eventually you reach our intelligence and then you go beyond that and you get to superintelligence and hyperintelligence. And thered be some whole infinite hierarchy of levels of intelligence. But I dont think thats the way it is. I think thats just one level and its not very hard to reach it. And I think thats the thing when you say, Is there intelligence out there in the universe? The answer is yes, theres lots of it. *A version of this article appears in the March 19, 2018, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now! Deutsches Haus at NYU will host Elias Wessels photography exhibition In the End, Though, Nothing is Lost (opening April 6); a panel discussion Tell Me What Democracy Looks Like with Siri Hustvedt and Marion Brasch as part of NYUs The Literary Mews and the Pen World Voices Festival (April 20); an illustrated lecture with choreographer and dance historian Millicent Hodson featuring stills from the original 1916 Ballets Russes production of Till Eulenspiegel (April 30); and more in April. Events at Deutsches Haus are free and open to the public. All events are held at Deutsches Haus 42 Washington Mews location (at University Place), unless otherwise noted. If you would like to attend this event, please send an email to deutscheshaus.rsvp@nyu.edu. As space at Deutsches Haus is limited, please arrive 10 minutes prior to the event. Please call 212.998.8660 or visit www.as.nyu.edu/deutscheshaus for more information. Subways: R, W (8th St.); 6 (Astor Pl.) Monday, April 2, 6:30 p.m. Home Made in India: A Conversation between Christopher Kloeble and Eric Jarosinski Deutsches Haus at NYU presents a reading by the author and current Max Kade Writer-in-Residence at Georgetown University, Christopher Kloeble, from his latest book Home Made in India, followed by a conversation. Indians, Germans, and an author seeking to answer the question: What is home? Since his marriage to Saskya from India, Christopher Kloeble is a notarized Person of Indian Origin. In this insightful, nuanced, amusing book, he strives to convey what it feels like to be suspended between two continents. Of course, cliches and preconceptions abound here as well as there - Indians enjoy chiding Germans for their impatience and dogmatism, while Germans focus on exotic stereotypes about life in India. For example: Did Saskya ride an elephant to school? Kloeble describes the communication problems and cultural differences that exist between his two worlds. However, his main focus is on the people he encounters, such as Siddhi, the sheltered princess and politician; or Kalu, the dreamy driver with a penchant for rose water. Each person he meets provides him with access points to this new homeland. Will he succeed at creating a Heimat for himself in Delhi as well as Berlin? Friday, April 6, 6:00 p.m. "Exhibition Opening: Elias Wessel's In the End, Though, Nothing is Lost Deutsches Haus at NYU presents the exhibition Elias Wessel's In the End, Though, Nothing is Lost. The exhibition will be on view until May 26. The pictorial source of In the End, Though, Nothing is Lost are photographs of landscapes taken by Elias Wessel during an artist residency in Kursk, Russia. There, the city administration demands rapid urbanization; old houses are demolished and citizens are forcibly displaced. The concern lies in the image making process. The nature of photography, to depict a virtual image of reality, is being destroyed. Houses and people vanish. By analogy this process and resulting images reflect the citys intention and consequences of modernization. "Within the residency project, the artist was urged to produce documentary material in relation to those areas designated, prior to their subsequent demolition and future commercial development, as shopping malls and offices. The simple documentary idea gave the artist considerable aesthetic anxiety, and he undertook to take one hand movement image each day at an elevated distance of one or two kilometers so that the images possessed a sense of a semi-aerial viewpoint. The artists concerns with creating a pictorial (hence painterly) effect in these images expunged the immediacy of human presence and the images took on the character of abstractions" (Mark Gisbourne, Visions of Synthesis The Photography of Elias Wessel). Sunday, April 8, 5:00 p.m. When Paul Came Over the Sea: Borders and (In)Humanity As part of KINO!2018, Deutsches Haus at NYU presents a conversation about When Paul Came Over the Sea between Jakob Preuss, the film's director, Gabriella Etmektsoglou, Cigdem Ipek, and Christian Martin, which will be moderated by Noah Isenberg. Paul is a migrant from Cameroon. He has made his way across the Sahara to the Moroccan coast where he now lives in a forest waiting for the right moment to cross the Mediterranean Sea. This is where he meets Jakob, a filmmaker from Berlin, who is researching a film about Europes borders. Soon afterwards, Paul manages to cross over to Spain on an inflatable rubber boat. He survives but half of his companions die on this tragic 50-hour odyssey. Once in Spain, instead of getting psychological help, he is sent to an immigration detention center on a prison island. It is only upon his release that Jakob and Paul meet again, at a Red Cross shelter in Granada. Because of the economic crisis in southern Europe, Paul decides to continue on to Germany, the former colonizing power in Cameroon and the country of his dreams. When Paul comes to Jakobs homeland, Jakob has to decide: will he become an active part of Pauls pursuit of a better life, or remain the detached filmmaker? In the end the film takes a twist that neither Paul nor Jakob could have expected when they first met in the forest in Morocco. The film tells the story of their unusual friendship; a friendship that grew in the politically problematic context of the ongoing European debates on migration. When Paul Came Over the Sea will be screened during KINO!2018 at the Landmark at 57 West on Sunday, April 8, at 1:30pm (with a Q&A with Marion Masone) and on Monday, April 9, at 6pm. This is a DAAD-sponsored event. Monday, April 9, 6:30 p.m. The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: Silke Scheuermann in conversation with Lucy Jones & Susan Bernofsky Deutsches Haus at NYU presents a reading of Silke Scheuermann's The Hour Between Dog and Wolf, and a conversation between the author and her English translator, Lucy Jones, moderated by the award-winning translator Susan Bernofsky. A young woman who has been living abroad returns to her hometown of Frankfurt am Main in Germany. Her sister Inesa beautiful, impetuous painterwho still lives there soon appears and promptly asks for financial help. But the returning sister knew this was comingit is how their relationship has always worked. However, this time, shes determined that will change. But plans dont always hold up to the surprises presented by lifeand when the sister finds herself about to drift into an affair with Ines lover, the two women grow unexpectedly closer. The Hour Between Dog and Wolf is a tale of disorientation in a modern, fundamentally rootless society that has become increasingly erratic and self-absorbed. It is also a powerful exploration of the difficulties of intimacy and addiction. This is a DAAD-sponsored event. Friday, April 13, 6:30 p.m. Mitchell B. Merback : Durer's Melencolia I and Therapeutic Images Before Modernity Deutsches Haus at NYU and the NYU Department of German present "Durer's Melencolia I and Therapeutic Images Before Modernity." Prof. Merback will discuss in a dialogue with Christopher S. Wood (Department of German, NYU) the concepts and inspiration behind his new book, Perfection's Therapy: An Essay on Albrecht Durer's Melancholia I (Zone Books, 2017). Albrecht Durer's famous portrayal of creative effort in paralysis, the unsurpassed masterpiece of copperplate engraving titled Melencolia I, has stood for centuries as a pictorial summa of knowledge about the melancholic temperament, a dense allegory of the limits of earthbound arts and sciences and the impossibility of attaining perfection. Dubbed the "image of images" for being the most zealously interpreted picture in the Western canon, Melencolia I also presides over the origins of modern iconology, art history's own science of meaning. Yet we are left with a clutter of mutually contradictory theories, a historiographic ruin that confirms the mood of its object. In Perfection's Therapy, Mitchell Merback reopens the case file and argues for a hidden intentionality in Melencolia I's opacity, its structural "chaos," and its resistance to allegorical closure. That intentionality, he argues, points toward a fascinating possibility never before considered: that Durer's masterpiece is not only an arresting diagnosis of melancholic distress, but an innovative instrument for its undoing. This is a DAAD-sponsored event. Friday, April 20, 6:00 p.m. Tell Me What Democracy Looks Like (Pen World Voices Festival/Literary Mews) As part of the Literary Mews and the PEN World Voices Festival, Deutsches Haus at NYU presents Tell Me What Democracy Looks Like, a conversation among Marion Brasch, Zetta Elliott, and Siri Hustvedt, which will be moderated by Prof. Marcia Pally. Many of you will recognize this panel title as the onset of a call and response a unifying chant and one of the most prominent at the Womens March on Washington D.C. on January 21, 2017 (and again on the one-year anniversary of Donald Trumps inauguration). This march, and many similar ones across the U.S. and the globe, were organized in order to advocate legislation pertaining to human rights, womens rights, immigration reform, racial equality, LGBTQ rights, reproductive rights, and healthcare reform to name a few. Our panel invites writers, thinkers, and journalists to reflect on the current crises that democratic institutions and governments around the world are facing as part of the rise of strong populist movements. It will not only examine the power of everyday citizens to affect change through protest and resistance, but also their individual approaches to activism and how to fortify the democratic principles we rely on. This is a DAAD-sponsored event. Monday, April 30, 6:30 p.m. Till Eulenspiegel: A Talk by Millicent Hodson Deutsches Haus at NYU presents an illustrated lecture about Till Eulenspiegel by choreographer/dance historian Millicent Hodson. Her talk will feature stills from the original 1916 Ballets Russes production as well as stills and video from the reconstruction of Till Eulenspiegel Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer created at the Paris Opera in the mid-1990s and again at the Rome Opera in 2001. Among the Ballets Russes reconstructions Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer have staged Till Eulenspiegel is the only one that was originally created in the U.S. The ballet was based on Till Eulenspiegel, the tone poem from 1895 which Richard Strauss agreed for Vaslav Nijinsky to choreograph. Nijinsky had been under house arrest in Budapest since the beginning of World War I, but Otto Kahn of the Metropolitan Opera and others worked to free Nijinsky to lead a U.S. tour of the Ballets Russes. Before leaving Europe Nijinsky met with Strauss who offered to write more music for Till Eulenspiegel as a ballet, but Nijinsky said he had imagined the work exactly as it stood. Till Eulenspiegel opened in October 1916 at the Manhattan Opera House on West 34th Street, the Metropolitan Operas ballet stage in those years. The ballet had 15 curtain calls in Manhattan and toured in triumph to some twenty cities in the U.S. However, Sergei Diaghilev and his coterie in Paris declared it a failure as Nijinsky was out of favor in the Ballets Russes. Only recent writing on the subject contradicts the fabricated verdict against Nijinskys Till Eulenspiegel, despite massive evidence to the contrary, some of which Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer have published. About Deutsches Haus at NYU Since 1977, Deutsches Haus at NYU has provided New Yorkers with a unique forum for cultural, intellectual, and artistic exchange with Germany, Austria, and Switzerland through its three pillars: the language program, the cultural program, and the children's program. It is one of NYUs prestigious international houses and is a key American institution fostering the understanding and transatlantic dialogue between the U.S. and the German-speaking world. With a diverse and cutting-edge cultural program, Deutsches Haus particularly seeks to expand its outreach to the next generation of global citizens. As Pakistan bolsters military might, an uneasy disquiet at the border Kupwara encounter: Gunbattle ends after 48 hours, 5 policemen martyred, 5 terrorists killed India oi-Chennabasaveshwar By Chennabasaveshwar The nearly 48-hour gunbattle in the dense Kupwara forest in north Kashmir ended on Wednesday night, with five security personnel, including three Army jawans and two policemen, dead and an equal number of terrorists killed, police said. The fresh exchange of fire occurred during the search operation in Kupwara's Halmatpora on Wednesday. Four terrorists were gunned down by the Indian Army during an encounter last night. The militants opened fire on Special Operations Group of Jammu and Kashmir Police and soldiers of 41 RR of the Indian Army at Arampora area in Kupwara. Army official told PTI the soldiers reacted swiftly and launched an operation to track down the militants. "At around 3.30 pm, a gun battle broke out between the militants and the security forces," he said. Additional reinforcements have been rushed to the forest area and the area has been cordoned off to ensure the security of civilians. (With agency inputs) OneIndia News AAP to contest all seats in UP assembly polls, not in talks for any alliance: Sanjay Singh AAP enters K'taka poll fray with an impressive list of candidates, but is that enough to get votes? India oi-Maitreyee Bengaluru, March 21: "Elections are a crazy business." Often heard in newsrooms, this one-line prognosis assumes special meaning when overheard at a political party press meet. On Tuesday, as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) announced its first list of 18 candidates for the upcoming Karnataka Assembly elections, there wasn't any dearth of one-liners nor predictions about the outcome of the party's ambitious bid. While elections to the 224-member Karnataka Assembly are likely to take place between the last week of April and the first week of May, the declaration of AAP candidates has come at a time when its head office in the national capital is reeling under several controversies. The latest controversy to hit the AAP has a direct connection with party chief and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, who seems to be on a "sorry spree", apologising to opposition leaders over remarks made in the past. Did the sombre mood in Delhi or for that matter Punjab unit of the AAP has left its cadres in Karnataka demoralised? Well, that hardly seemed to be the case on Tuesday. "We are all behind Kejriwal. He did the right thing," stated Karnataka AAP leaders when questioned by reporters following Kejriwal's apology to Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia recently. Earlier at a public rally, Kejriwal had openly called Majithia a "drug lord". Later the former minister of Punjab filed a defamation case against the Delhi CM in 2016. While members of AAP in Bengaluru were happy that Kejriwal has apologised to Majithia and others to end the long list of defamation cases against him, the party leaders in Punjab seem to think otherwise. The AAP may have been going through "another phase of trouble", but the excitement of its members in Karnataka was in complete contrast to the mood in Delhi. Many among the crowd present at the press meet believed the reason behind the 'unapologetic' enthusiasm could be the distance that separates the north from the south. Whatever may be the real reason, the AAP cadres in Karnataka certainly sounded confident of performing well and surprising their detractors in the coming elections. What, however, stood out at the Bengaluru press meet, attended by a host of AAP leaders and volunteers in their trademark 'Main Hoon Aam Aadmi' caps, was the list of candidates. To cheer the aspiring MLAs, senior AAP leader and Rajya Sabha member of Parliament (MP) Sanjay Singh flew down from Delhi to the IT city. From retired IAS officer, aeronautical engineer, software engineer, anchor, advocates, autorickshaw driver to the grandson of a former chief minister of Karnataka, the AAP list impressed many because of its enviable pool of well-educated and respectable citizens. (Someone in the crowd couldn't help think aloud that 'the ADR will hopefully have to work a little less this time compiling the list of criminal, corrupt and unlettered netas'.) "We are trying to bring some amount of calmness to the otherwise chaotic business of politics where only rich and dynasts get a chance to contest elections," said a software professional who left his cushy job in the United States (US). The AAP volunteer, who has been working with the party in Bengaluru for the last few years, requested OneIndia not to be named. "My biggest reward is that I get a chance to work with so many talented, honest and hardworking people in the AAP," said the gentleman in his late 40s. Pankaj Gupta, the national secretary of AAP who addressed a group of reporters, too had something similar to say. "We have selected the candidates after much deliberation. Unlike others, the AAP believes in giving chance to those who are honest, hardworking and law-abiding citizens of the country. Our fight is against three Cs--corruption, criminals and communal forces," Gupta said. "People want good roads, development and jobs. They are tired of corruption and divisive politics. The AAP will provide an alternative government to the people of Karnataka. We will replicate the AAP's Delhi success story in Karnataka with good schools and better healthcare system," promised Gupta. The upcoming Assembly elections will be the AAP's second attempt to be a part of the electoral process in Karnataka. Making its debut in Karnataka during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the AAP fielded candidates from all 28 constituencies in the state but failed to win even a single seat. "In 2014, it was an experiment, we had hardly campaigned. This time, things are different. All the 18 candidates have been campaigning and working with people for the last several months. People want a change and we will give them an alternative," said Mohan Dasari, a software engineer, who quit his job to be a full-time politician. Dasari will be contesting elections from the CV Raman Nagar constituency in Bengaluru. Like Dasari, Santosh Nargund, a senior aerospace specialist and seasoned RTI activist who is contesting from the Hubli-Dharwad central constituency, said the partymen's confidence was a result of their work with the people and door-to-door campaign. "I have been campaigning for the last few months in my constituency. We go and meet people in their homes. We are getting a tremendous response. People want change for sure," Nargund, who is contesting polls against senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former CM Jagadish Shettar, told OneIndia. Retired IAS officer, Renuka Viswanathan, said she joined politics to fight corruption. "Corruption is endemic across the country. I have seen it first-hand as a bureaucrat. The AAP's fight is against corruption and people will vote for us," said the polite politician who is contesting from the Shanti Nagar constituency in Bengaluru. When asked if the party, which claims it has no muscle and money power, could challenge the might of the biggies in the elections, Prithvi Reddy, Karnataka convener of the AAP, said: "We are here to change politics." Reddy will take on senior Congress leader and incumbent minister for Bengaluru Development and Town Planning, KJ George, from the Sarvagnanagar in Bengaluru. Taking a more realistic stand, Nargund admitted that "money and muscle power" do play a huge role in elections. "We are trying our best. For the results, we have to wait and watch." Speaking to OneIndia, political scientist Sandeep Shastri said the AAP could give a stiff competition in a select few seats mainly because of the profile of its candidates, and poor image of opponents. The confidence of the AAP candidates could also be a result of the fact that despite Congress CM Siddaramaiah harping on Kannada pride and appeasement of groups like Lingayats, the anti-incumbency wave is pretty strong in the state. Regarding Modi wave, the AAP claims that it's almost non-existent in Karnataka. A veteran journalist present at the venue was heard telling his colleagues that Karnataka is not Delhi and the AAP will find it difficult to win seats here. "I doubt it will win even a single seat. But I am sure the AAP will prove to be a spoilsport for the BJP in a few seats, helping the Congress win in return." Karnataka Assembly Election dates Date of notification April 17 Last date to file nominations April 24 Last date to withdraw nominations April 27 Date of polling May 12 Date of counting May 15 OneIndia News After father removed from job, 2-year-old girl child in Bhind, MP allegedly dies of starvation India oi-Oneindia Staff By Oneindia Staff Bhopal, March 21: One more case of starvation death, this time from Madhya Pradesh, has shocked the nation. In the last few months, several cases of alleged starvation deaths have been reported from various parts of the country. The victim, a two-year-old girl child, died in Bhind on Tuesday, as her family had no money to buy food and feed the little one. Her father, a daily wage earner, was recently removed from his job. Talking about his plight, the father of the deceased told that his daughter died due to hunger. "I was removed from my work as a labourer and not given the wages and so could not buy food," he told ANI. After the news of the death of the girl came to light, the authorities gave the family Rs 10,000. Officials also provided food to the family. #MadhyaPradesh: A 2-year-old girl died in Bhind allegedly due to starvation, her father says 'I was removed from my work as a laborer and not given the wages and so could not buy food'. Family was provided with Rs 10,000 by the administration. pic.twitter.com/kHNQyofIzE ANI (@ANI) March 20, 2018 As per the authorities in Bhind, the family had no food to eat for two days. "We were told at 11 am that there's a household which had no food for two days. First, we provided the family food. The girl already had fever and passed away in afternoon. The body was sent for postmortem. Police officials have been directed to take necessary actions," Santosh Tiwari, SDM of Bhind, was quoted as saying by ANI. We were told at 11 am that there's a family who has not had food since 2 days. We provided them food first of all. The girl already had fever & passed away in afternoon. Body was sent for postmortem. Police has been directed to take necessary actions: Santosh Tiwari,SDM Bhind pic.twitter.com/GUuhR9OL3m ANI (@ANI) March 20, 2018 In January this year, a 42-year-old man died due to hunger in Uttar Pradesh's Bareilly. The man from Bhamora village in Bareilly has left behind his old and ailing mother, who is 90 years old. According to neighbours, the family had "nothing to eat" which led to the man's tragic death. In November last year, one more alleged starvation death was reported from Bareilly. A 50-year-old woman, Sakina, reportedly died of starvation after her husband, Ishaq Ahmed, was allegedly denied ration because she could not accompany him to provide biometric authentication at the ration shop. The first major case of alleged starvation death was reported from Jharkhand in September last year. The mother of an 11-year-old school-going girl alleged that her daughter died as the family stopped getting rice under the government's Public Distribution System (PDS) as they had no Aadhaar card. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled state also witnessed the death of a 45-year-old rickshaw puller allegedly due to hunger in October. Along with the BJP-ruled states, alleged starvation deaths were also reported from Karnataka (where the Congress is in power) last year. Reports stated that three brothers of a family died because they had no food to eat. OneIndia News TN elections 2021: CM Palaniswami targets DMK over 'dynasty politics' asks people to end it through polls AIADMK not in alliance with BJP: Tamil Nadu CM India oi-Deepika By Deepika Amid pressure over the formation of Cauvery Management Board, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palanisamy on Wednesday informed the state assembly that there was neither any alliance nor support to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). "There is no alliance with or support to the BJP," Palanisamy said in the assembly. Palanisamy remarks come amidst criticism from opposition parties on being soft on the Centre over the setting up of Cauvery Management Board (CMB). On March 15, the state assembly unanimously passed a resolution urging the Centre to set up the Cauvery Management Board (CMB), which would be a joint mechanism to manage the division of the waters of the Cauvery River involving the Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Central governments. The AIADMK's MPs have been holding protests in the Parliament complex demanding the constitution of the CMB. The Supreme Court had on February 16 ordered the Centre to set up the CMB within six weeks. It had also reduced the amount of water awarded to Tamil Nadu and had been notified in 2013. OneIndia News (with agency inputs) Arrest not mandatory under SC/ST Act: SC lays down fresh guidelines India oi-Vicky Nanjappa In a major judgment which would have far-reaching implications, the Supreme Court has held that an arrest is not mandatory under the SC/ST Act. Pointing out that there was a large-scale misuse of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, the court also said that the accused person is entitled to anticipatory bail. A Bench comprising Justices Adarsh K Goel and U U Lalit gave the ruling on a petition that challenged a Bombay High Court order. The appellant Dr Subhash Mahajan had challenged the verdict which had refused to quash an FIR that was filed for his adverse remarks against an SC employee. The Bench said that from now on, the arrest of any person under the Act would need a written approval from a police officer of the rank of a Senior Superintendent of Police. The officer would have to record reasons as to why an arrest would be necessary. Where a public servant is involved, approval must come from the appointing authority. Even at the stage of registration of a case, it will be open to police to conduct a preliminary enquiry (by DSP rank officer) and not proceed in cases where allegations are found to be frivolous or motivated, the Bench said. The court also said when an accused is arrested and produced before a Magistrate, the concerned court can apply its mind to ascertain if a prima facie case under the Act is made out. Based on its conclusion, further remand or detention of the accused can be refused. Section 18 of the 1989 Act did not allow an accused to get anticipatory bail. The court, however, removed this bar and said that the provision will not apply to such cases where no case is made out or the allegations are patently false or motivated. The court held that this was necessary to prevent blackmail of public servants from discharging their official functions. The court also said that common citizens too are faced with the threat of jail and surrender of civil rights and hence this bar had to be removed. The court relied on the data provided by the National Crime Records Bureau. In 2015, nearly 16 per cent of the cases ended with closure reports being filed. Over 75 per cent ended either in acquittal or withdrawal. In 2016, 5,347 such cases were found to be false against the Scheduled Castes and 912 against Scheduled Tribes. The Annual Report 2016-17 of the Department of Social Justice and Empowerment, the Government of India compiled figures to show that in the year 2015, a total of 15,638 cases under the Act were decided by courts across the country of which 11,024 cases resulted in acquittal or discharge and only 4,119 cases resulted in a conviction. The Bench further said that the underprivileged need to be protected against any atrocities to give effect to the constitutional ideals. At the same time, the said Act cannot be converted into a charter for exploitation or oppression by an unscrupulous person or by police for any extraneous reasons against other citizens. Any harassment of an innocent citizen, irrespective of caste or religion, is against the guarantee of the Constitution. This court must enforce this guarantee. Law should not result in caste hatred, the Bench said. OneIndia News Cambridge Analytica issue: Congress denies allegations, says it's diversionary tactics by BJP India oi-Deepika By Deepika Divya Spandana, the head of Congress Social Media and Digital Communication, hit back at BJP's claims on Twitter. "News about Congress engaged/engaging with Cambridge Analytica is absolutely false," Spandana wrote on her personal Twitter account.The BJP on Wednesday alleged that the Congress has links with the British data analytics Cambridge Analytica, at the heart of a data theft controversy that is said to have meddled in the US presidential campaign of 2016. Divya accused that BJP is raising these issues to divert attention from death of 39 Indians in Iraq. She vehemently denied news articles which suggest that Congress is a client of Cambridge Analytics, and uses its service to improve their social media strategy. Government today warned social media platforms like Facebook of 'strong action' if any attempt was made by them to influence the country's electoral process through undesirable means. Amid probe by US privacy watchdog over a potential breach of user confidentiality by Facebook, IT and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the government fully supports freedom of press, speech and expression and is for exchange of ideas on social media. But any attempt by social media sites, including Facebook, to influence India's electoral process through undesirable means will not be tolerated, he told reporters in Parliament House complex. "If need be, strong action will be taken,"he said. OneIndia News Raviji, the same thing just happened to me: Shashi Tharoor to seek explanation from Twitter What is itat e-dwar the new e-filing portal of the IT appellate tribunal Social media companies free to do business, but should be accountable to Indian laws: Ravi Shankar Prasad Big step towards transparency: Prasad on first compliance report by Google, FB under new IT rules If over 45 countries use Pegasus, why target just India?, asks Ravi Shankar Prasad Cambridge Analytica issue: IT minister hits out at Congress, issues stern warning to FB India oi-Deepika By Deepika Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in a series of tweets, trained guns against the Congress Party. Questioning the link between Cambridge Analytica, the Facebook-linked company accused of leaking data, Prasad wrote: "Will the Congress Party now depend upon data manipulation and data theft to win elections?" He alleged that Cambridge Analytica, the agency roped in by Congress to run their 2019 campaign and termed as their 'Brahmastra' in a certain section of media, is accused of using bribes, sex workers to entrap politicians and stealing data from Facebook. Amid probe by US privacy watchdog over a potential breach of user confidentiality by Facebook, Ravi Shankar Prasad said the government fully supports freedom of press, speech and expression and is for the exchange of ideas on social media. But any attempt by social media sites, including Facebook, to influence India's electoral process through undesirable means will not be tolerated, he told reporters in Parliament House complex. "If need be, strong action will be taken," he said. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), an independent government body charged with ensuring that companies abide by their own privacy policies, is looking at whether Facebook violated a 2011 consent decree after media reports alleged that it had handed the data of millions of users to a political consultancy. Reports had alleged that Cambridge Analytica used data mined from Facebook in the voter research it conducted for President Donald Trump during the 2016 elections campaign. OneIndia News Children know religion better than our PM: Rahul Gandhi India oi-Chennabasaveshwar By Chennabasaveshwar Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for peddling lies in the name of religion. Rahul Gandhi was addressing a public rally in Chikkamagaluru. Rahul Gandhi said, " I was in Sringeri mutt, 'karmbhoomi' of Adi Shankaracharya ji, there children are taught about religion. A 14 yr old told me religion means truth, 'Satyamev Jayate',others also said the same thing. Strange that children know religion better than our PM." "Even young minds have this clear understanding of spirituality and religion. However, our PM Modi fails to understand what 'Satyameva Jayate' means. He engages in peddling lies," he added. In an emotional appeal to the people of Chikkamagaluru, Gandhi said, "You stood with my grandmother Mrs Indira Gandhi during her toughest days and helped her achieve a historic win in Chikkamagaluru." "I humbly request you to bless me with your support like you supported my grandmother Mrs. Indira Gandhi, " he said. Rahul Gandhi said, " People do not want to listen to lies, and speeches of hate. They want to listen to truth and issues that concern them. I'm confident that due to the unity and hard work of our party workers, we will win PM Modi speaks about corruption while sharing the stage with his own party members who were jailed for corruption." On China's movement in Doklam, he said, "China is building helipads and airports at our borders in Doklam but PM Modi is silent. No important issues of this nation are addressed by the PM." Comparing access to education in Karnataka with Gujarat, "From kindergarten to PG, every girl child gets free education from the Karnataka Govt. In Gujarat, however, around 90% of institutions are privatised and it costs 15 lakhs for every student to graduate," said Rahul Gandhi. Karnataka Assembly Election dates Date of notification April 17 Last date to file nominations April 24 Last date to withdraw nominations April 27 Date of polling May 12 Date of counting May 15 OneIndia News A voter casts her ballot in Kenyas elections last year. Photo: Luis Tato/AFP/Getty Images After two years worth of stories about the shady acquisition and subsequent mishandling of Facebook profile data by the political consultants Cambridge Analytica and its contractors, the general public and the politicians that represent them finally seem ready to take on the company and, more importantly, take on Facebook for enabling it. The U.K.s Information Commissioner is seeking a warrant to seize Cambridge Analyticas servers. Senator Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat, has written an open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg demanding answers about how often user data was illegitimately passed on to third parties. The truth is, though, as invasive and troubling as this data-harvesting might have been in the U.S. and U.K., it was likely much worse in the developing countries in which Cambridge Analytica claimed to have been experimenting. In an undercover sting for Channel 4 in the U.K., executives at Cambridge Analytica, including CEO Alexander Nix, were caught on tape bragging about how the company tries to compromise politicians. They also spoke about how the firm essentially ran political campaigns. In Kenya, for example, We have rebranded the entire party twice, written their manifesto, done two rounds of 50,000 surveys, Mark Turnbull, the managing director of Cambridge Analyticas political division states. Then wed write all the speeches and wed stage the whole thing. So just about every element of his campaign. Its possible that Turnbull and Nix were overstating their influence in their capacities as salesmen. But theyre not the only people claiming that Cambridge Analytica and its parent company, the SCL Group, has been operating with little restraint in countries that have fewer (or no) regulations or laws governing the collection and use of data about citizens. As the Times reported this past weekend on the SCL Group: SCL Elections has clients around the world, and it has experimented with data-driven microtargeting techniques in the Caribbean and Africa, where privacy rules are lax or nonexistent and politicians employing SCL have been happy to provide government-held data, according to former employees. Whatever you might say about Cambridge Analyticas effects on U.S. elections (and the jury is still out about the companys actual power), the danger for data-harvesting companies to disrupt politics not to mention the threat to user privacy is much more profound in countries like Kenya, which have abundant internet access (Quartz writes,Mobile penetration among Kenyas 44 million people is almost at 90%, and the country has one of the fastest mobile internet speeds in the world), but lack strong or comprehensive regulations on digital privacy. One of the most striking examples of the global power of the new generation of internet companies is their ability (and willingness) to use smaller and developing countries as testing grounds for their new products in particular, for initiatives they couldnt get away with in the U.S. For years, Facebook has tried to violate the principle of net neutrality by striking deals to make Facebook not count against mobile data caps (in India, Facebooks Free Basics program was met with heavy criticism). In Myanmar, Facebook basically is the internet, and it has been accused by the U.N. of fueling the genocide there through misinformation and fake news, also prevalent during Kenyas volatile elections last year. A few months ago, Facebook devastated publishers in six smaller countries by moving their posts into a separate, less-viewed feed called Explore. The test wasnt so funny to the news sites that watched their traffic get slashed in half during an experiment that they hadnt agreed to take part of. Data-centric companies like Cambridge Analytica and Facebook love places that lack basic privacy regulations for obvious reasons. For companies like them, the question of whether or not something is right is the same as asking whether its legal. This attitude also explains why so many large tech companies shun regulation: It would unambiguously confirm that they were in the wrong. How the minority status for Lingayats will benefit only medical colleges India oi-Vicky Nanjappa The big debate is on the recommendation of a religious minority status for the Lingayats in Karnataka. While the opposition BJP has termed the decision by the Karnataka Congress government as an attempt to divide the Hindus, the other question is who will such a move benefit. The reservation quota for the Lingayats is unlikely to go up if the tag is accorded. It is bound to remain at 5 per cent only as the reservation quota will not be re-written. Interestingly, it was pointed out that this would, in the long run, benefit the medical colleges run by Lingayats. The state Cabinet made the recommendation and sent it for approval to the Union Government. First and foremost the Centre would examine if the Lingayats are entitled for minority status to secure benefits under Article 30 of the Constitution. The Centre would then take a decision under Section 2(f) of the National Commission Minority Educational Institutions Act of 2004. If the decision is made the benefits would automatically pass on to the medical colleges run by Lingayats. Medical and professional colleges would get the protection under Article 30 and this would minimise the control of the state government over them. As a result of this, these institutes could admit up to 50 per cent of the students that they can reserve for their community. With the degree of control by the state government going down considerably, the college would have greater administrative autonomy and would also have the freedom of appointments. In the landmark TMA Pai Foundation case the Supreme Court went on to define the rights of the minorities. It also said that a commission should be appointed to decide on who are minorities. It was in 2004 that the government appointed a commission. As of today, the decision making power lies with the Centre. Senior Advocate Mohan Katarki says that in such cases the states legally have the right to consider any such representation. However, it is the Centre which was vested with the power in 2004 which will take a final call on the matter. OneIndia News Inspired by Rahul Gandhis speech Goa Congress chief resigns India oi-Staff By Oneindia Staff Writer The President of the Goa Congress, Shantaram Naik has resigned from his post stating that he was inspired by Rahul Gandhi's speech at the party plenary about making way for younger leaders. The 71-year-old senior Congress leader resigned after Rahul in his concluding speech that he wants to give the younger generation a chance to come forward and lead the party. Naik has sent his resignation to the All India Congress Committee on Tuesday morning, ending his stint as Goa Pradesh Congress Committee president since July 8, 2017, when he had replaced senior party leader Luizinho Faleiro. "I have resigned from the post of Goa Congress chief to pave the way for the younger generation to come forward. I was inspired by party chief Rahul Gandhi's speech at the plenary session, where he said he wanted to give chance to the younger generation," he told PTI. During the session, the entire stage was empty and only those who were delivering speech used to go up and do it from the podium, he said. "Everyone including Sonia Gandhi was off the dais," Naik told PTI. "When Rahul Gandhi went to deliver the speech, he said the stage is kept empty so as to let the younger generation take over the reins. My resignation is to make way for the young leadership to take over," the former MP said. Naik was elected to Lok Sabha in 1984 from North Goa constituency and twice to Rajya Sabha later. Congress, with 16 legislators, is currently the main opposition in the Goa Legislative Assembly. Naik said he was turning 72 and wanted the young to now lead the party. "I only want to suggest that somebody who has put in at least 10 years in the party and his love and commitment for the party should be given a chance to come forward and lead the party in the country," he said. OneIndia News Here is why the Karnataka mining case worth Rs 35,000 crore is falling apart Is Sidda and Ramaiah the next divide on the cards in Karnataka? India oi-Vicky Nanjappa Would you divide yourself as Sidda and Ramaiah, the former Lokayukta of Karnataka, Justice Santhosh Hegde asked. Slamming the Karnataka government's move to recommend the religious minority tag to the Lingayats, Justice Hegde said that the government had no business to recognise any community as a religion. In a scathing write-up, which has gone viral in the social media, Hegde, a former Karnataka Lokayukta, sought to know from Siddaramaiah "when he would divide himself as Sidda and Ramaiah." "Sir, I am not a politician. I am not interested in who will win the next elections, but sir where will politics stop dividing us ordinary people?" he said in a poser to the chief minister. Hegde also queried if Siddaramaiah would recognise either Digambar or Shwetambar as backwards, Shias or Sunnis as separate religions for recognition as backward, or Protestants or Roman Catholics as separate religions for offering backward status. "Or which of left or right SC's as more backwards. Or which of Bunts or Nadavas as a different religion and amongst them who is more backward and among Brahmins who will it be Vaishnavas or Shiva's or will you divide Siddaramaiah to Sidda and Ramaiah?" "We are having a government under the constitution of India, a secular government. No political party, no government has any business to interfere in the internal affairs of any community," Hegde said. In a sarcastic remark to the chief minister, Hegde sought to know if a chief minister can interfere between a husband and wife. "Can a chief minister say between husband and wife you divorce him and come and I will find a better groom for you. Yes, I am very much hurt... that's why I wrote. I have been a judge at the Supreme Court. I know my limitations. How low can you get in?" asked Hegde. In a major political move ahead of the Karnataka assembly polls, the state cabinet yesterday decided to recommend to the Centre according to religion status to the numerically strong Lingayat and Veerashaiva Lingayat community. The move was seen as an attempt by the Siddaramaiah government to cut into the vote bank of BJP, as Lingayats/ Veerashaivas are considered its traditional supporters. OneIndia News Karnataka: Minister MB Patil claims his phone being tapped India pti-PTI Bengaluru, March 21: Karnataka Water Resources Minister M B Patil claimed the phones used by him and his family members are being tapped and feared there would be Income Tax raids against him before the model code of conduct for the state assembly polls comes into force. "My phone is being tapped. Not only mine, also that of my son, my wife, people around me, my organizations... The phones of 10 to 12 people around me were tapped...," Patil claimed. He told reporters at Vijayapura in North Karnataka that he received this information yesterday and this morning. "Anytime before the model code of conduct comes into force, there will be an IT raid against me within eight to 10 days," he claimed. He added that he had information on the IT raid from "very reliable" officials. "Preparations are on for an IT raid on me. Let them do it," he said. Patil had made similar claims following IT raids on properties linked to Karnataka Power Minister D K Shivakumar last year. Karnataka Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy had in January accused the BJP-led government at the Centre of tapping the phones of Congress leaders in the state. PTI Malayalam Actress assault case: Kerala HC postpone Dileep 's plea asking for visuals of actress India oi-Madhuri Kerala High Court on Wednesday postponed a plea filed by accused actor Dileep, who is charged as the eighth accused in the Malayalam actress abduction case, asking for the visuals of the victim's assault, to next Monday, on demand of the prosecution as well as the counsel of Dileep. Both asked for more time for the trial. Dileep had moved the court demanding access to the visuals of the alleged assault on the actress in a moving car in February 2017, Manorama reported. However, the court rejected his plea, saying that only the Kerala High Court can decide whether a copy of the visuals can be given to the accused or not. The complainant has filed a petition asking for a special court with a female judge to conduct the trial in the case. She has also asked for the court proceedings to be held in-camera. In February 2017, a group of men allegedly waylaid the woman's vehicle in Ernakulam district's Angamaly. The men allegedly held her hostage for over two hours in the moving vehicle while they assaulted her and took photographs of her. Reports said that Dileep, who was arrested in July, had planned the attack on the actress as payback for a personal grudge. He was granted bail on October 3. According to the chargesheet, there is circumstantial evidence that Dileep had conspired with Suni to abduct and sexually assault the actress. He has reportedly been booked under 17 sections of the Indian Penal Code. OneIndia News Pak gives nod for PM Modis flight to use its airspace On a long flight to the US, PM Modi spends time clearing files, doing paper-work At Global COVID-19 Summit, PM Modi says India has seen humanity as one family Modi congratulates German Chancellor Merkel on assuming office for fourth term India pti-PTI New Delhi, Mar 21: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today called Angela Merkel to congratulate her on assuming office as the Chancellor of Germany for a fourth successive term. Prime Minister Modi lauded the strong leadership provided by Chancellor Merkel to Germany, and the pivotal role played by Germany in European affairs during her leadership tenure, an official statement said here. Modi reiterated his commitment to continue working with Merkel for deepening and strengthening the Indo-German bilateral relationship. Prime Minister Modi also said that he is looking forward to his forthcoming meeting with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who will be on a state visit to India on 22-26 March. PTI No work, no dinner party, VP Naidu punishes MPs for stalling Parliament India oi-Oneindia Staff By Oneindia Staff New Delhi, March 21: As feared by many, on Wednesday too Parliament failed to function. Both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha were adjourned immediately after Parliament sessions began, as chaos and confusion continued in both the Houses. After witnessing ruckus in the Rajya Sabha, Chairperson M Venkaiah Naidu adjourned the House till Thursday morning, reported ANI. While Telugu Desam Party (TDP) parliamentarians stormed the well of Rajya Sabha over their demand for special status to Andhra Pradesh, members of the opposition parties blamed the government for repeated adjournments of both the Houses of Parliament during the ongoing second half of Budget Session. On Wednesday, the Lok Sabha saw opposition parties shouting slogans against the government leading to the disruption of the House. Since the time the second half of Budget Session started on March 5, both the Houses of Parliament saw chaos and repeated adjournments. Thus hardly any work took place in Parliament causing huge loss to taxpayers' money. Anguished over disruptions in the working of the Rajya Sabha, Chairman Naidu, who is also the country's Vice President (VP), on Tuesday cancelled a dinner he was to host for members of the Upper House on Wednesday. According to reports, preparations for the dinner were completed last week. Naidu had even spoken to the President, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the House, the Leader of Opposition and floor leaders of various parties whom he had invited. Invitation cards were kept ready. Naidu had expected the House proceedings would normalise by Tuesday. However, it did not happen. At a meeting with the floor leaders of various parties in his chamber on Tuesday, the RS Chairman conveyed anguish over the ongoing stalemate in the House and informed them of his decision to cancel the dinner. Naidu was of the view that it would not be appropriate to go ahead with the dinner with the House not functioning for over two weeks, stated reports. He had planned an Andhra Pradesh special dinner, with specialist cooks called from the state. It is learnt that he also refused to inaugurate a badminton tournament for MPs at the Constitution Club last week. According to a government report, each minute of running Parliament in sessions costs Rs 2.5 lakh. On Tuesday, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Manoj Tiwari wrote a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan demanding "no work, no pay" rule for MPs. The BJP MP not only demanded implementation of "no work, no pay" rule in Parliament but also pitched for reducing emoluments of MPs if they fail to engage in "constructive work". In his letter to Lok Sabha Speaker, he expressed his "great anguish" at the stalemate in the Lower House over the "unprecedented chaos", and said it was equally disturbing to see public representatives, who are primarily responsible for making laws, running away from their responsibilities. With opposition parties protesting in both the Houses of Parliament over a variety of issues, the second leg of Budget Session has been a virtual washout so far. The second part of Budget Session will end on April 6. The first part of Budget Session commenced on January 29 and end on February 9. OneIndia News Painting the Congress anti-Hindu would be BJPs counter on Lingayat minority tag issue India oi-Vicky Nanjappa The BJP had seen this coming and today the party is discussing a possible counter to the decision of the Karnataka government to recommend a religious minority tag to the Lingayats. For now, party insiders say that they would wait and see how the status would be notified. We would want to see if the government under Section 2(d) of the Karnataka State Minorities Act would include the words, Lingayats, Veerashaiva-Lingayats and Basava tatva. The BJP would also wait and watch to find out what decision the Akhila Bharatha Veerashaiva Mahasabha would take. The president of the Mahasabha, Shamanur Shivashankarappa on Tuesday had objected to the use of the term Basav tatva while according Lingayat status. The BJP's chief ministerial candidate, B S Yeddyurappa had told reporters that the Mahasabha should convene a meeting of community leaders, Mutt seers and then take a call on the government's decision. While the outcome of the meeting would be crucial, the BJP, on the other hand, has already decided to charge the Congress government with the anti-Hindu tag. BJP backers on the social media had put out several posts accusing the Congress of dividing Hindus. The party has in the past too charged the Congress of being anti-Hindu. The attempt to take over mutts and temples are some of the allegations that the BJP has already made against the Congress in the past. They would add this in their campaign to take on the Congress and portray it as an anti-Hindu party. This would be a very delicate issue and all parties would have to tread carefully. The Lingayats make up for 17 per cent of the population and can make an impact in at least 100 seats in the 224 members Karnataka Legislative Assembly. The Karnataka Assembly Elections 2018 are expected to be held in early May. OneIndia News Special Status for Bihar: Pappu Yadav demands discussion in Lok Sabha India oi-Deepika By Deepika The demand for Special category status for Bihar seems to be gaining momentum with Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) MP Pappu Yadav demanding urgent discussion on the matter in Lok Sabha. In a letter written to the general secretary of the Lok Sabha, Yadav highlighted the difference in development levels of the various states of India. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had yesterday said he had not given up the demand for grant of special status to Bihar "for even one second" since he first raised the issue 13 years ago. "I had written to the then prime minister for a special status to Bihar in 2005, shortly after assuming power in the state. A year later, we got a resolution passed in the state assembly to the effect. "Since then, the demand has been raised by us relentlessly and I have not strayed for even a second. I'm amused to see those who were never concerned about the issue have suddenly started questioning my silence," Kumar told reporters at party headquarters in Patna. He also indicated that the issue of special status for Bihar would be raised before the 15th Finance Commission. OneIndia News Petrol bomb hurled at BJP leader's car in TN: Is it over Periyar statue vandalisation? India oi-Vikas By Vikas A day after the statue of Dravidian movement icon EV Ramasamy, fondly called Periyar, was vandalised in Pudukkottai, a petrol bomb was hurled at the car of BJP district secretary in Coimbatore this morning (March 21). Although there is no evidence to suggest the two incidents are linked, but what needs to be recalled is that several petrol bombs were thrown at the BJP office in Gandhipuram in Coimbatore hours after a Periyar statue was vandalised in Vellore earlier this month. #WATCH A petrol bomb was thrown on the car of BJP district secretary in Coimbatore in the early morning hours. (CCTV footage) pic.twitter.com/eHuta711Yp ANI (@ANI) March 21, 2018 There is a reason why the fingers are pointed at the BJP everytime a Periyar statue is vandalised in Tamil Nadu. It all actually started with the razing of Lenin statue in Tripura soon after the BJP won assembly polls in the state. On the day when Lenin statue was demolished, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national secretary H. Raja had put out a controversial Facebook post. "Who is Lenin? What is his connection to India? What is the connection of communists to India? Lenin's statue was destroyed in Tripura. Today Lenin's statue, tomorrow Tamil Nadu's EVR Ramaswami's statue," his post said. Raja later apologized for his controversial Facebook post and said "The post in my FB was done by one of the admins of my page without my permission. As soon as I came to know about it, I deleted the post. We have to respond through statements and opinions, not through violence." Raja had then drawn flak from all across Tamil Nadu with the DMK even demanding a police case against him. Then, on March 7, Periyar's statue at Tirupattur in Vellore was vandalised hours after Raja's controversial Facebook post. Two persons were arrested in connection with the incident. [Another Periyar statue vandalised, this time in Pudukkottai] Born in 1879, Periyar is remembered for the Self Respect Movement to redeem the identity and self-respect of Tamils. He envisaged a Dravida homeland of Dravida Nadu and launched a political party, Dravidar Kazhagam (DK). Periyar is an icon in Tamil Nadu and his statues can be found across the state. OneIndia News Cattle farmers in Kiruhura district are struggling with infestation of ticks that have increasingly become resistant to acaricides. One of the affected farmers is Dr Dick Kamuganga, who has lost 27 cows in the last two years. Kamuganga says he has been changing from one acaricide to another with hope he could find the best, but in vain. This problem is widespread in Kiruhura, says Kamuganga. We have been relying on government zoning which has not come to pass. We have been receiving different signals from NDA [National Drug Authority] and the ministry of Agriculture, but signal extraction for the farmer who is ignorant is very limited. According to the ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF), the country is faced with an influx of adulterated animal drugs, chemicals, acaricides and agrochemicals. This has resulted into failure to cure the intended diseases or kill the targeted pests. To fight this problem, Kamuganga proposes that government traces the origin of the fake chemicals on the market and direct dealers to stop importing them. Responding to Kamuganga and other farmers pleas, the government has set control and regulation measures on the importation, manufacture, distribution and retailing of animal drugs, biologicals, chemicals, acaricides, and agrochemicals. Addressing dealers and importers of agrochemicals in Kampala today, minister for Agriculture, Vincent Bamulangaki Ssempijja, said research is being undertaken to identify an acaricides that is capable of killing of the resistant ticks. The effective acaricides will be used in the affected districts, said Ssempijja. Once the resistant tick is cleared, acaricides zoning will be adopted using single molecule acaricides. Citing his visit to Kiruhura on Tuesday, Ssempijja said farmers presented strange bottles labeled with brands of acaricides they use to spray ticks. They had been assured by some dealers that these concoctions will work, he said. We found out yesterday, with technical officers, that some of these concoctions have even killed their animals. To avoid further damage, Ssempijja said government would register and license all manufactures of animal drugs, chemicals, acaricides and agrochemicals as a prerequisite to operate. To the farmers, government will provide information on authorised dealers from whom to buy animal drugs, chemicals, acaricides and agrochemicals. Within three months, all importers and dealers are expected to comply with the regulations. matsiko@observer.ug Rajasthans youngest sarpanch is a medico and she promises to work for girls education, sanitation India oi-Oneindia Staff By Oneindia Staff Jaipur, March 21: Flaunting a tiara and a garland, and flanked by a group of supporters, she is not any other beauty pageant winner. But she is definitely a "queen", to be precise of Rajasthan. The 24-year-old medical student from Rajasthan, Shanaz Khan, officially took over her job as a sarpanch in Bharatpur district of the state on Monday. In fact, the woman became the youngest sarpanch of the state after she defeated her nearest rival by 195 votes in the recent elections. Shanaz, who is currently pursuing her MBBS from Moradabad's Teerthanker Mahaveer Medical College, has joined politics to work for the deprived section of society. Speaking to reporters, she said she wanted to work in the field of girls' education and sanitation. Shanaz added that she has got an "opportunity" to serve her people. "I am happy that I have got the opportunity to serve my people. My priorities will be education for girl children and sanitation," the young medico was quoted as saying by ANI. She added that she wanted to set an example for girls on how education can help in so many ways. I am happy that I have got the opportunity to serve my people. My priorities will be the education of girls and sanitation. I want to set an example for girls on how education can help in so many ways: Shanaz Khan, youngest & first MBBS Sarpanch in Bharatpur district, #Rajasthan. pic.twitter.com/YAGzu5Juyf ANI (@ANI) March 19, 2018 When asked about her interest in politics, Shanaz smiled and said that she belongs to a family that has been a part of politics. Her grandfather was a sarpanch himself and her mother was also a minister in the state, added reports. The young sarpanch feels that her medical background will be a boon for her in efficiently delivering her duties as an elected representative of Rajasthan. "My training in the medical field will help me in executing duties as a public servant," Shanaz was quoted as saying. Shanaz is a role model for many young women of the country. She is not only well-educated and politically aware but wants to bring a change in society. OneIndia News Rajya Sabha election: SBSP to support BJP candidates from UP India pti-PTI Lucknow, Mar 21: Ahead of the biennial Rajya Sabha polls from Uttar Pradesh, the BJP can heave a sigh of relief after successfully mollifying one of its allies in the state whose four votes could be crucial for the ruling party. While the BJP has the numbers to send its eight candidates to the upper house, its ally Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP), which has four MLAs in the 403-member UP Assembly, holds key to the success of its ninth nominee. The BJP and its allies have 324 seats in the Assembly after the death of its Noorpur MLA in a road accident recently. To secure a win in this Rajya Sabha election, a candidate needs 37 first preference votes. Thus, arithmetically, the BJP can easily win eight of the 10 seats and will be left with 28 surplus votes, with the SBSP now deciding to go with the BJP. "There can be some contest on the ninth seat," a senior UP BJP leader said. The SP and the BSP appeared confident to win one each of the remaining two of the 10 seats. The SP has fielded Jaya Bachchan and the BSP Bhimrao Ambedkar. The polls are scheduled for March 23. The SBSP, which had skipped the first-year anniversary bash of the Yogi Adityanath government on March 19, yesterday announced that its MLAs would support BJP candidates after its leader met the saffron party's chief Amit Shah in New Delhi. "I have met BJP president Amit Shah, who noted the points raised by me and assured me he will visit Lucknow on April 10 and sit with me, the BJP state president and the UP chief minister to resolve the problems. We have decided to vote for the BJP in Rajya Sabha elections," SBSP president and UP cabinet minister Om Prakash Rajbhar told PTI. Rajbhar had sent shock-waves in the ruling dispensation as he made public his displeasure with the senior alliance partner by skipping the celebrations held on the completion of one year of the Yogi Adityanath dispensation. "We have made this government and it is our duty to repeatedly point out shortcomings... Holding celebrations is not going to serve the purpose. Building temples in Mathura and Kashi will not give education to the poor, toilets and pension to them," Rajbhar had said. "We are in an alliance, but the alliance dharma is not being upheld by the BJP. In one year, their role has not been good for us," he had rued. Giving the saffron party anxious moments, the SBSP had also threatened that its four MLAs would boycott the Rajya Sabha elections in case the "big brother" does not redress the party's problems. With 19 MLAs, the BSP is short of 18 first preference votes, and with Naresh Agarwal's son Nitin, who is still an SP MLA, likely to cross-vote for the BJP, the task will become difficult for Mayawati's candidate Bhimrao Ambedkar. Riding on the new bonhomie with the SP, Mayawati is banking on the 10 surplus votes of Akhilesh Yadav's party, besides seven votes of the Congress and one of RLD to reach the magic figure of 37 votes. However, Nitin Agarwal can queer the BSPs pitch if he votes for the BJP. Naresh Agarwal, who recently quit the SP and joined the BJP, has said his son would vote for the saffron party in the Rajya Sabha polls. The country's most populous state sends 31 MPs to the 245-member Rajya Sabha, and the BJP, which won a massive victory in the 2017 Assembly elections, is yet to get a lion's share of these. With 83 members in the Upper House, the NDA is well short of a majority. The BJP has 58 Rajya Sabha MPs. The BJP candidates in the fray from UP are Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Ashok Bajpai, Vijay Pal Singh Tomar, Sakal Deep Rajbhar, Kanta Kardam, Anil Jain, Harnath Singh Yadav, GVL Narasimha Rao and Anil Kumar Agarwal. PTI No arrests made in JNU campus violence case in over 1.5 years: Govt informs Parliament Sexual harassment row: JNU students protest for suspension of Professor Atul Johri India oi-Deepika By Deepika A day after Delhi court granted bail to Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Atul Johri, the protesting students at the University demanded suspension of the professor alleged for sexual harassment cases against female students. Students said, "We want JNU to suspend him and declare that he cannot enter University premises." Johri was arrested on Tuesday at around 4 pm and obtained bail within three hours. Students and professors of the university as well as women's rights organisations have been protesting demanding Johri's suspension, but no action has been taken yet. On 15 March, seven students from JNU lodged a complaint of sexual misbehaviour at Vasant Kunj police station against the professor but police had registered the complaints with only one name. Following the protests, police on Tuesday registered eight FIRs against Johri on the separate complaints of nine students who alleged that he sexually harassed them in School of Life Sciences lab. Denying harassment charges against him, JNU professor Atul Johri said, "I have been working in JNU since 2004. I'm a victim of politics." He added that sending him to jail would ruin his career. OneIndia News 'Water crisis: Bengaluru might head Cape Town way' India pti-PTI New Delhi, Mar 21: Bengaluru is among the 10 cities in the world that might be on the verge of an imminent acute water crisis just as the one faced by Cape Town in South Africa, a CSE-assisted environment magazine today claimed. "The number of waterbodies in Bengaluru has reduced by 79 per cent due to unplanned urbanisation and encroachment -- while built-up area has increased from eight per cent in 1973 to 77 per cent now," claimed Down To Earth, the magazine that Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) helps publish. According to a statement issued by CSE ahead of World Water Day, the water table in Bengaluru has shrunk from 10-12 m to 76-91 m in just two decades while the number of extraction wells has gone up from 5,000 to 0.45 million in 30 years. "Cape Town in South Africa is facing the prospect of all its taps running dry by June-July this year," it claimed. Bengaluru's population might reach 20.3 million by 2031 and is growing by 3.5 per cent annually, the CSE statement said. "Many of the world's leading cities will see Cape Town-like water crisis in the not too distant future... 10 cities across the world are facing 'Day Zero' (when taps are expected to run dry), and severe water shortage will hit them in the not-too distant future unless cities innovate, diversify supply sources and use water judiciously," it said. Besides Bengaluru, other cities facing similar situation include Beijing (China), Mexico City (Mexico), Nairobi (Kenya), Karachi (Pakistan), Kabul (Afghanistan) and Istanbul (Turkey), the statement said. PTI Who is behind Rajinikanths political journey? Actor-politician denies BJPs role India oi-Oneindia Staff By Oneindia Staff Chennai, March 21: Tamil superstar Rajinikanth, who last year announced that he would be launching his own political party in the coming months, has kept everyone in suspense for a long time now. While his colleague from the film industry, Kamal Haasan, has launched his own political party, Makkal Needhi Maiam, in February this year, Rajinikanth is playing his cards close to his chest. There have been rumours that the 67-year-old actor-politician is being backed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in its attempt to find a strong footing in Tamil Nadu politics. Rajinikanth has also stated that he would follow the philosophy of spiritual politics adding fuel to the rumours of his close ties with the BJP. On Tuesday, after returning to Chennai from a spiritual tour, Rajinikanth told reporters that only God and people were behind him and not the BJP. He added that the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) government in Tamil Nadu should put additional pressure on the Central government to set up the Cauvery Management Board. When asked about his meeting with some BJP leaders during his spiritual tour and the view that he is backed by the party, Rajinikanth denied that the BJP was supporting him, saying "only God and people were behind him". While the main opposition party in Tamil Nadu, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), has strongly opposed the Ram Rajya Rath Yatra that has entered the state on Tuesday, Rajinikanth said the state is secular and the government should provide security to it and prevent any communal flare-up. According to reports, Rajinikanth is likely to unveil the official flag of his yet to be named political party on April 14, the Tamil New Year's Day. His supporters are also working on to pick a name for the party too. Reports say a list of 10 possible names for the party has been drawn up. The actor-politician will soon pick one name that is "attractive to the masses and that can herald a change in politics", add reports. OneIndia News Lingayats vs Veerashaivas: Congress has no magic wand and the ghost will continue to haunt it Why Siddramaiah's Lingayat 'appeasement' move may backfire India oi-Vikas By Vikas Siddaramaiah government's move to approve separate religion status to Lingayats in Karnataka has hit a major hurdle with All India Veerashaiva Mahasabha president, Shamanur Shivashankarappa, describing it as "height of injustice". Shivashankarappa, who is also a veteran Congress leader, said that the Mahasabha would decide the future course of action on the issue on Friday. Siddaramaiah's move, which was initially seen as a political masterstroke, has now become a complex issue. Lingayats are considered as the BJP's traditional voter base. This move by the Congress government was aimed at both dividing the BJP's vote bank and appeasing the Lingayat community, but it is not panning out as expected by Siddaramaiah. "We thought that the government had decided to recommend a minority tag for the Veerashaiva-Lingayat combine, but now I realise the plea is one-sided and will do injustice to Veerashaivas. We will not accept the extension of the special tag to those among them, who follow only the principles of Basava. We realised that the state Cabinet had drawn up the proposal very cleverly," a Deccan Chronicle report quoted Shivashankarappa as saying. Though many feel that Lingayats and Veerashaivas are one and the same and that the words were interchangeable, they are actually very different. Lingayats are followers of Basavanna, the 12th-century social reformer who staunchly opposed the caste system. Veerashaivism is an order of Shaiva faith, which in turn is one of the two major Vedic faiths - the other one being the Vaishnava faith. Both Shaiva and Vaishnava followers constitute the Sanatana dharma. Another hurdle is that Schedule Castes of the Veerashaiva/Lingayat sects may lose reservation benefits if the separate religion proposal is accepted by the Centre. [SCs of Veerashaiva/Lingayats to lose reservation benefits if separate religion tag accepted] "In November 2013, the then Manmohan Singh government had decided that giving separate religion tag will split the society further and affect SCs professing Veerashaiva/Lingayat Dharma," Union Minister, Arjun Ram Meghwal said. The fact that the UPA government had then opposed the separate religion status for Lingyats, but now Congress vehemently backing it is also not going to help Siddaramaiah. BJP is using this to attack the Congress over the issue. Meghwal alleged that "the Karnataka government is playing politics. The only reasons they are pushing for separate religion status is to stop Lingayat BJP leader B S Yeddyurappa from becoming chief minister." [Separate religion status for Lingayats: Why Yeddyurappa's stony silence speaks a lot?] Union Minister Ananth Kumar also lashed out at the Siddaramaiah government and said Congress' "vote bank politics" will "boomerang". Karnataka Assembly Election dates Date of notification April 17 Last date to file nominations April 24 Last date to withdraw nominations April 27 Date of polling May 12 Date of counting May 15 OneIndia News Tax suspicion notwithstanding, billionaire JB Pritzker wins Illinois Democratic primary International oi-Shubham By Shubham Entrepreneur and venture capitalist Jay Robert Pritzker on Tuesday, March 20, defeated five candidates in the fray to bag the Democratic primary for the governor's post in the state of Illinois in the US. The 53-year-old is likely to face Republican governor of the state Bruce Rauner in November this year. Rauner is one of the most unpopular governors in the US with an approval rate even less than President Donald Trump in Illinois where the president lost decisively in the 2016 elections. The Democrats, who have only 16 governors at the moment, have found an opportunity to increase its tally in Illinois by snatching it from Rauner who is also facing a stiff competition in his own party. In the primary, Pritzker defeated Illinois Senator Daniel Biss and Chris Kennedy, a businessman and the son of late Robert F Kennedy after spending a whopping $70 million from his own pocket on the campaign. Pritzker, however, had no qualms about his wealth. He told the media that the race was not about money but values of social and economic justice. He said the voters wanted someone who would fight on their behalf. Pritzker's tax activity not above suspicion However, the man's noble talks did not shift the focus from his wealth. Recent media investigations found Pritzker and his brother Anthony owned a number of offshore shell companies where they parked their money and Pritzker did not reveal much about his personal income tax returns. This has raised suspicion that the candidate was avoiding taxes even as he promoted progressive income tax to help overcome Illinois's financial hardships. His opponents in the primary even termed his "fraud" and "liar" but Pritzker remained indifferent to the criticism. Pritzker vows to cure Illinois financial ill health Pritzker ran this campaign with the promise to restore Illinois's financial health. Last year, the state managed to pass its first budget in two years, overcoming the veto obstacle put up by Rauner. Illinois currently has unpaid bills amounting to over $15 billion along with a pension debt of over a quarter trillion dollars - the highest in the US. Pritzker has promoted the progressive income tax, whereby those who earn more, will get taxed more, as a remedy to cure Illinois's financial illness. OneIndia News Yet another blast rocks Kabul: Is Afghanistan army capable of defending the nation? International oi-Shubham By Shubham The Nowroz or New Year had a devastating beginning in Afghanistan as 26 people were left lifeless by an explosion in Kabul while 15 were injured. A suicide bomber had detonated the explosives among some pedestrians in an area near the Ali Abad Hospital and Kabul University to carry on the blood-spilling game in one of Asia's most volatile country. The latest explosion has seen condemnation from various quarters, including President Ashraf Ghani who has recently invited Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to his country to start a comprehensive dialogue for peace. Can Afghanistan army capable of taking on terrorists? But apart from the condemnation, it is also being asked whether the Afghanistan army is capable of ensuring security against the rising instances of terror activities? In April 2017, two top Afghan army personnel had stepped down following a horrible Taliban attack on an army base outside Mazar-e-Sharif in Balkh province, killing over 160 Afghan soldiers. The perpetrators, around 10 of them, had come in the guise of armymen and carried out the mayhem, causing a massive damage to the psyche of the army as well as the war-torn nation. The two resignations from the top were accompanied by a suspension of four personnel and probe into eight more for allegations that the Taliban attackers were aided from inside the military camp. The US stresses more on Taliban while other terror outfits spread tentacles in Afghanistan The challenges to domestic security in Afghanistan have been manifold but the counter force is more specific. The Islamic State (IS) has also increased its presence in Afghanistan after things have looked down for them in Syria and Iraq and they, along with the old terror residents of Taliban, have made the threat to peace in the region much more. The US has focused more on dealing with the Taliban in Afghanistan but that has left other terror outfits largely unaddressed. The IS has been carrying out terror activities in Afghanistan of late, including the March 21 tragedy, but one isn't sure how much the Afghan security force and its trainer - the US and the West - would still think about dealing with the IS challenge hereafter. US sends more troops to Afghanistan but yet the violence doesn't subside Even the West's presence in Afghanistan has not been bearing the fruit since the conclusion of the NATO combat mission in December 2014 and the current US administration led by President Donald Trump has vowed to commit more soldiers to the Afghanistan cause. In August last year, Trump said 4,000 more American troops would be pressed into service in Afghanistan. In November, the number of American soldiers stationed in Afghanistan went up to 14,000 with the personnel stationed on the ground seeking more reinforcement. Top US commander in Afghanistan General John Nicholson said he needed 16,000 troops in Afghanistan and the remaining 2,000 would be made up by the NATO members. Yet, with all these arrangements, Kabul continued to bleed often. The idea of sending more and more troops to Afghanistan didn't appeal to a number of experts who thought only increasing the numbers was not going to change the ground reality. The Afghans troops haven't received the best of training and problems like corruption and poor air support have led to exit from the military ranks and leaving the national defence more vulnerable. The division within the political ranks of the country's leadership has not helped things either. With a weak democracy and military force, Afghanistan literally lies at the mercy of those who want to destroy it beyond recovery. OneIndia News What would Indias role in Afghanistan be with the Chinese backing Taliban China not to cede a 'single inch' of land, ready for 'bloody battle': Xi International oi-PTI President Xi Jinping in his nationalistic speech asserted China will not cede a "single inch" of its territory to others and is ready to wage a "bloody battle" to assume its due place in the world. In a 30-minute speech at the close of the National People's Congress, the Communist nation's rubber-stamp Parliament, Xi, now enjoying a life-long tenure said: "Since modern times, rejuvenation of the great Chinese nation has become the biggest dream of our nation". "The Chinese people and the Chinese nation have a shared conviction which is not a single inch of our land will be and can be ceded from China," Xi said, addressing the closing session of the NPC, the first by a President in recent years. Though Xi made no mention of any territorial issues, the country has been involved in a number of disputes with some of its neighbours. Besides the border dispute with India, China claims rights over the disputed islands in the East China Sea under the control of Japan and vast stretches of the South China Sea where it is firmly asserting its control. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have counterclaims over the strategic South China Sea. Xi said China has all the capabilities to take its due place in the world. Every year, Chinese annual parliament season ends with a press conference by the Premier. This is the first-time a President addressed its valedictory session. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang who addressed his customary annual press conference also spoke about China's determination not to cede territory. "China is resolute in upholding its territorial integrity and will not abandon single inch of its own land. China also pursues peaceful development and in the same vein China will not occupy an inch of land of others," he said. "I want to emphasise China will not seek expansion", Li said. Xi, 64, last week altered the course of the history of China after the NPC beside re-electing him for a second five-year term also ratified a constitutional amendment scrapping the two-term limit paving the way him to remain in power for life. He has emerged as the most powerful leader after Mao Zedong as he headed the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC), the military and the Presidency. Seeking to allay fears about absolute power enjoyed by him controlling all levers of power, Xi vowed to continue to serve as a servant of the people. "The Chinese people has been indomitable and persistent. We are resolved to fight the bloody battle against our enemies and on the basis of independence we are determined to recapture the relics," he said in a nationally televised speech. "We have strong capabilities of taking our due place in the world. We have fought for that big dream for about 170 years. Today more than ever the Chinese people are close to that dream, ever more confident and capable of realising the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation," he said"I am convinced once the 1.3 billion Chinese people carrying on such big dreams we will certainly translate into a reality," he said, drawing loud applause from his audience inside the Great Hall of the People. "We should safeguard the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country and achieve full unification of the motherland. This is the aspiration of all the Chinese people," Xi said in an apparent reference to Taiwan which Beijing claims as part of it. In his speech, Xi also delivered a stern message to the separatists, saying "any action that separates the country is doomed to fail. These separatist actions will be met with the condemnation of the people and punishment of the history." "Chinese people have strong determination, full confidence and every capability to triumph over all the separatist actions," he said. Besides Taiwan, China brands Tibet's exiled Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama as "splitist". China is also carrying out an extensive crackdown on the Muslim Uygur majority Xinjiang against the separatist group East Turkistan Islamic Movement. Xi said any actions and tricks to split China are certain to meet with the people's condemnation and the punishment. He also sought to allay the concerns of the world about rising China as well as his multi-billion dollar pet project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), saying that China's development does not pose a threat to any other country. "China will never seek hegemony or engage in expansion. Only those who are accustomed to threatening others see everyone as a threat," he said, taking a dig at the US. The BRI has special implications for India as the China- Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is part of it. India has protested to China over the CPEC as it traverses through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. PTI Taliban fighters who were once inmates of pul-e-charkhi jail in Kabul, now are the prison guards In touch with all concerned: India on reports of kidnapping of Indian national in Kabul Indian citizen kidnapped in Kabul: In touch with Taliban says New Delhi At least 26 killed, 18 hurt in explosion near Kabul university International oi-Deepika By Deepika A suicide bomber blew himself up in Kabul on Wednesday, killing at least twenty 26, officials said, as Afghans celebrate the Persian new year holiday. The incident happened close to the Ali Abad hospital and Kabul University. Another 18 people were wounded in the blast, health ministry spokesman Waheed Majroh told AFP. Witnesses said they saw many casualties on the ground soon after the explosion, which is believed to have been a car bomb. According to Tolo News, the blast took place at the Kart-e-Char area in PD3, near Ali Abad hospital and Kabul University. A report said that bodies were lying on the ground soon after the explosion, which is believed to have been a car bomb. Security forces have closed off the area and ambulances are still arriving at the scene, TOLO news reported.The interior ministry said a suicide attacker on foot had detonated himself in front of Kabul University. On the other hand, TOLO News reported that the police in Kabul had confirmed that a car bomb was used in the explosion, which took place close to the Ali Abad hospital and Kabul University. Afghan police are saying that the death toll will rise. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far. Wednesday's blast, the latest in a series to have hit Shi'ite targets in Kabul, came as people were walking away from the shrine, near the city's main university. OneIndia News Hundreds of Ugandan teachers working in Tanzania have been silently forced back as the host country cracks the whip on foreigners. The expulsions raise questions about Tanzanias commitment to the East African Community, particularly the Common Market Protocol adopted in 2009. The protocol provides for integrated border management, removal of restrictions on movement of labour and services, and the right of establishment and residence for East Africans. A classroom in Tanzania. Photo: www.rotaryserviceblog.org Although many of these have been agreed, a Ugandan representative to the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA), Fred Mukasa Mbidde, says two issues: labour movement and residence, are still under the armpits. We are not yet a country as East Africa. What Tanzania is doing obviously is not in the spirit of cooperation but it is within the current framework. Labour is only permissible to the extent that one has a work permit, Mbidde told The Observer. Life story Before Isaac left for Tanzania in 2010 to work as a secondary school teacher of geography and economics, he had pounded the streets job-hunting in Uganda. He was only successful at landing a few unsatisfying ones which paid peanuts. A friend working in Tanzania connected him to possible employers in the Swahili-speaking nation. An already frustrated Isaac jumped at the opportunity of a job at Green Bird High School, in the Kilimanjaro region. I found so many Ugandan teachers there who were in mostly church founded and private schools but as I talk now, many of us have since been forced to return, he told The Observer recently. The pay was much better than here, and salaries varied from one school to another, he said. By the time he left late last year, a secondary school teacher earned about Ug Shs 1,000,000 on mostly two year renewable contracts, which attracted a gratuity of 15% each year. Many of them did not have work permits. Then in the last year of former president Jakaya Kikwete things changed and worsened two years into President Magufuli Pombes presidency. Many Kenyans and Ugandans were thrown out. Immigration officers would come to the school and sometimes we would be alerted by administration and we would disappear. They usually came with our full names and details, which we believe were given to them by Tanzanian colleagues, Isaac said. "Our employers loved us but Tanzanians are jealous Isaac says it is practically impossible for a foreigner to get a work permit in Tanzania under the Magufuli administration. Many who have filed for permit renewal were denied and have since returned to Uganda. A few months after taking oath, Magufuli said he wanted to end the haphazard issuance of work permits, adding that foreigners should not be engaged in jobs locals can do. The cost of a permit in Tanzania ranges between Shs 140,000 and Shs 9,000,000. That depends on the kind of job one is doing, and for teachers, the subjects you teach. Sciences draw higher while arts attract lower fees. Jennifer Nakasujja, another deportee, said the fees were raised to $2,000. Border points Isaac said they had to settle for a three-month visiting visa which could be renewed clandestinely with the help of friends in the immigration department. Nakasujja said many foreigners are arrested on Tanzanian streets and deported. I was walking on the street someday and the immigration officers took me in. My work permit had expired and they wanted to detain me and process my papers for deportation, however at the police station, I found a Tanzanian lawyer friend who saved me, Nakasujja said. Married in Tanzania For the six years he has been there, Isaac found love in Tanzania, married and now has a child. But he left his family behind when the crackdown intensified. And because he has no job, he cannot bring them here. Isaac has returned once to visit them and he was allowed only a one month welcome, which he overstayed by two days and got into trouble with immigration officers. My wife didnt have a maid at home and since Im not working here, I went to stay with the child until we could get a maid. Unfortunately, we could not get one in time, I decided to get an extension and while I was being tossed around, my visa expired, Isaac said. He was questioned when he reached the border until he had produced his marriage certificates. However, getting married to a Tanzanian has no effect on a foreigners residency in Tanzania, Isaac says. Ministry of East African affairs on spot The shadow Foreign Affairs minister in parliament, Francis Zaake blames the deportation of Ugandans on an inefficient, understaffed, useless and underfunded ministry of East African affairs whose officials do completely nothing apart from travelling. He suggests the ministry be dissolved and the little money allocated to it used to help those expelled. He wondered why Uganda sits quiet while its citizens are deported yet it freely accepts Rwandans, Kenyans, Tanzanians to work and own property here. In Rwanda, it is hard to find a Ugandan working but they (Rwandans) are here working with Ugandan national identity cards, he said. Alfred Nnam, the spokesperson of the Foreign Affairs Ministry said they know about the deportation of Ugandans from Tanzania. There have been some few cases that we know about and we have addressed in our joint permanent commission, Nnam said. kamogajonathan50@gmail.com No hot pursuits into Pakistan: Why Washington nowadays blows hot & cold on Islamabad International oi-Shubham By Shubham Although US President Donald Trump slammed Pakistan on more than one occasion in the last few months accusing it of doing little to curb terrorism even while gobbling up money, the US Department of Defence has recently ruled out hot pursuits into the Pakistani territory to take on terrorists who exit Afghanistan and take shelter there. While Trump screams at Pakistan, his administration speaks softly Sources in the Pentagon told Indian and Afghan media outlets that if Pakistan wanted to keep the terrorists within its borders, it was free to do so as long as it did not harm the region's peace and stability. The US officials made it clear that they had no authority to enter Pakistan which is a sovereign country. The Pentagon said the US would leave things happening in Pakistan to Islamabad and focus on Afghanistan instead. It also said that Washington hopes Pakistan would take steps to ensure that there is no terror sanctuaries in its territory for that would not only help Afghanistan but also Pakistan and India and the entire region. It was also informed on US's behalf that its security aid would resume only after Islamabad addresses the allegation of providing safe havens to terrorists on its soil. The Donald Trump administration disallowed transfer of security assistance worth over $1 billion to Islamabad saying it did not do enough against the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network - an insurgent group that targets Afghan government and US troops in that country. Going for hot pursuits in another country is certainly not a wise foreign policy decision for it can have terrible ramifications. But what is striking in the latest words from the US is that it cannot maintain a strong stand on Pakistan consistently and would blow hot and cold with the latter over issues pertaining to Afghanistan and terrorism. President Trump himself might have blasted Pakistan a couple of times and even threatened to include India wholeheartedly in the power game in Afghanistan to encircle Pakistan but his administration has not been found to be as harsh on Islamabad. And it is so because those who run the foreign policy machinery of the US knows very well that dumping Pakistan altogether will only harm the interests of Washington in the war-torn region in the long run. For Trump as an individual, it is much easier to express disappointments and act politically incorrect. Unilateral steps on Pakistan haven't paid off in past The Pentagon's comparatively softer words on Pakistan show that the US is keen to tone down its voice against Islamabad on matters related to terror. In March 2011, Pakistan had strongly condemned a US drone attack on its soil killing many innocent civilians. Again in November the same year, Pakistan retaliated against a NATO attack on a couple of its military outposts killing 25 soldiers by shutting the NATO supply line to Afghanistan. The US knows very well that repetition of such incidents today would see Pakistan leaning more towards China and Russia, worsening things more in the geostrategic region. For the US, things have changed in Afghanistan; for Pak, not so much Pakistan, despite its support for the terrorists in the region as a tool of defence, has a more appropriate stand compared to the Americans on this issue. Islamabad wants the Americans to see it as an ally not through the prism of Afghanistan or India but as an equal partner. It has pointed out to the Americans that they have been allies for many decades now and they even fought it together against the former Soviets in Afghanistan. The US can't deny this. When it came to the ideological enemies - the Soviets - the Americans had not cared for the Haqqanis' ill deeds or whether Pakistan was giving shelter to the terrorists. Today, in a completely different geopolitical reality, America's old friends have turned its foes and accordingly, Pakistan's status has changed in Washington's eyes. But for Islamabad, things haven't changed so much and hence aligning their foreign policy priorities with those of the US have become a challenging, if not impossible, task. Pakistan knows it has China and Russia to fall back upon Pakistan today is little deterred by Washington's warnings, at least in its face, because it knows that ambitious world powers like China and Russia would stand by it if Washington stretches things too far. On the other hand, Washington knows that Pakistan remains a key country for its mission in Afghanistan. Trump may blast Pakistan a million times on Twitter but the reality is that the US is yet to find a replacement for Pakistan as a key strategic ally. Therefore, there is again a renewed effort from the US to put the wheels back to the bruised relationship so that it can inch forward. Suddenly, US, Pak & Afghan leaderships engaging a lot more Pakistan's Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi had a surprise meeting with US Vice President Mike Pence last week where they discussed Afghanistan and it followed a visit by Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Tehmin Janjua to the US where she met officials from the White House and the State Department. Again, a day after Abbasi-Pence meeting, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani invited the Pakistani prime minister to Kabul to start a dialogue. With the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor taking shape and threatening to bring an irreversible change in international politics, the onus lies more on the Americans today to take Pakistan into confidence it they really want to arrive at a universal solution to the Afghanistan problem. Taking a harsh stand on Pakistan would not help its cause for as long as the latter perceives a threat to its existence in Afghanistan (in terms of India's involvement for example), it would not mend its ways. Forcing Pakistan, in that case, would only alienate it further and endanger the American interest in Afghanistan. The carrot and stick policy of Washington are not working anymore with Islamabad. It's high time it thinks out something new and effective - and more inclusive -- on Pakistan. OneIndia News Dear Mr President, bragging that you have sorted out weevils in police is not enough. Sort out the mess in the whole security system from the army to intelligence agencies. As long as issues of equal opportunities for training, deployment and promotion are not sorted out, you are wasting time. External and internal security organisations (ESO & ISO) as well as the polices crime intelligence bodies should attract smart brains, not friends and family. This should be deliberate and a matter of policy. Before you got power, you criticized past leaders for using intrigue, religion and tribalism as a weapon. In your last 20 years, you have done the same, if not worse, using handpicked people from other regions to help you prolong your stay. I interact with some of them; they hate what you are doing but their families must feed. You are putting a certain group in danger if you departed violently, because many people do not feel part of your government but are only there to earn a living. You have lost control of the state but you dont admit it. Call a national conference and redeem your legacy; we will forgive you as long as you admit some of your mistakes. Dr Gerald Werikhe Wanzala, Kampala. Ugandans need reliable electricity Recently, power distributor Umeme informed the public through social media that downpours could pull down some electricity poles. During the same time, three people were electrocuted in Lubaga division, Kampala. In January, Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) reported that during a standards verification exercise between June and December 2017, some 6,000 out of 6,500 electricity meters the body tested were faulty! What do such reports mean to Ugandans? If the national power distributor is using substandard electricity meters and has falling poles and collapsing transformers, what should ordinary Ugandans do? President Museveni and his cabinet should immediately implement the recommendations of the 2009 Salim Saleh committee report on electricity and the 2013 parliamentary ad hoc committee report on electricity provision in Uganda. The implementation should start with the termination of the Umeme concession, a forensic audit of Umeme investments and returns on those investments. Balach Bakundane, Kampala. Why govt should implement Local Economic Devt policy Its now 12 years since government formulated the National Local Economic Development (LED) policy of 2006, as a partnership framework for sub-national economic development. This framework aimed at supporting the countrys strategy of implementing private sector-led economic interventions; tackling unemployment and enabling sub-national governments to generate their own revenues for service delivery to citizens (rights holders). Unfortunately, it has never been implemented. Despite a cocktail of policy regimes in Uganda, poverty levels have increased to 27 per cent by 2017, as stated in the Uganda National Household Survey report 2016/17. The figures are even higher, above 50 per cent, if the level of vulnerability indicators is anything to go by. Besides, sub-national governments continue to face financial constraints with adverse implication on service delivery outcomes to rights holders. Apparently, Uganda is not starved on policies but, rather, their effective and full-scale implementation. This calls for renewed momentum and strategies to achieve equitable, gender-responsive and sustainable economic development. As such, inter alia, Uganda must invest more in production and lesser in the creeping culture of consumption. The ever mushrooming number of administrative units remains a recurring problem, for it deprives resources for direct service delivery and poverty reduction in Uganda. For instance, the number of town councils (TCs) across Uganda will increase from the current 233 to 422 at the dawn of financial year 2018/19, of which 111 TCs became operational in FY 2017/18. This then increases the administrative costs incurred by governments since the people must be paid for any work done. However, after payments, there is seldom any money left to carry out service delivery functions. We need deliberate investment in the environment and natural resources (ENR) sector, upon which gainful and technological worthy agroproduction and productivity are hinged. This will strategically bring aboard the 68 per cent households that currently live under subsisting agriculture. Even with Shs 832 billion allocation to the agricultural sector in FY 2018/19 in Uganda, deliberate public sector investment in the sector ought to be intentional on key areas like (a) feasible and climate smart agronomic practices (b) conservation of water catchment areas (c) real (not fake) agro-inputs (d) marketing systems (e) dealing with runaway corruption in the sector, and others. Beyond public policy rhetoric, big launching functions and speeches, successful intentioned implementation of public policy endeavors like the Local Economic Development (LED) will add to aggregate reduction in public sector borrowing, thus sustainable debt management. Priscilla Naisanga, Uganda Debt Network. Jinja referendum has spoken loud I would like to congratulate Paul Mwiru for winning the Jinja Municipality East MP seat. Mwirus victory is an indicator that Ugandans are bitter with every legislator that supported the bill to remove presidential age limits. The vote is the only way a poor person can express themselves. I am confident that even if government organises a referendum to extend the presidential term of office to seven years, Ugandans will respond in a similar way as they did in Jinja against Igeme Nabeeta. The fight continues. Joel Mukisa joelmukisa13@gmail.com. We are all culpable for city floods Whenever it rains, Ugandans attack government over flooding, forgetting that it is our fault since we always construct houses and cultivate crops in water catchment areas. We also dump rubbish in drainage channels, hence blocking them. When it rains, water stagnates and it starts overflowing into roads and peoples houses since it has nowhere to pass. So, the only way to end this carnage is for people to learn proper garbage disposal and for authorities to stop everyone trying to settle in wetlands. It is everyones responsibility to report whoever is destroying wetlands. Sarah Kyobe, Kampala. letters@observer.ug New Jersey Online Gambling Revenue Hits New Record Published March 20, 2018 by Elana K Despite February being the shortest month of the year, New Jersey online gambling revenue hit an all-time high of $22 million. The Golden Nugget came in at first place with an impressive $7.88 million in total revenue. Despite February being the shortest month of the year, New Jersey online gambling revenue hit an all-time high of $22 million. This is the second month in a row that New Jersey online gambling revenue has broken records; of course, almost every month of 2017 also saw the industry hitting record-highs, with very few exceptions. Leading Online Casinos The Golden Nugget brought in $7.88 million in February, maintaining the title of first-place winner that its garnered for itself over the past few months. Borgata came in at a far second, with $3.79 million in total revenue, just beating out Resorts, which came in at third place with $3.77 million. Online Poker Still Struggling Despite New Jerseys record-breaking numbers for online gambling, its online poker industry is still continuing to struggle. However, February brought a slight, slight cause for hope, showing an increase of 0.6% over last months total. While that doesnt sound like much, its certainly better than an overall decrease, which has been online pokers story for the better part of 2017. Total Tax Revenue From NJ Online Gambling One of the reasons that many states are currently considering legalizing online gambling is that the industry is designed to bring in tax revenue, thus creating a long-term solution to help states with their budget deficits. New Jersey is the paragon of state-regulated online gambling, since its online casinos are thriving and bringing in a steady stream of tax dollars to state coffers. Including February 2018, the online gambling industry has paid a total of $143.3 million in taxes to the state of New Jersey since online gambling was legalized in 2013. If thats not reason enough for other states to pass regulations, we dont know what is. The rumblings from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) are ominous. The banking regulator has issued four warnings against Bitcoin (BTC) and other crypto-currencies since December 2013, the last few explicitly calling it a ponzi scheme. Stock market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has made an oblique cautionary statement on the digital currency. And, after years of stony silence by the finance ministry, Arun Jaitley made a surprise declaration in Budget 2018: "Bitcoins will not be considered lawful or legal tender in India." You would expect a nationwide clampdown after such overpowering sentiment from the regulators and the government. Far from it. Two dozen Bitcoin/crypto trading platforms (8 large ones) are flourishing where you can buy and sell Bitcoins like you buy and sell stocks on any stock exchange. While regulation is still years behind the curve, 2-3 million investors trade between Rs 100 to 200 crore worth of crypto-currencies a day (Rs 36,500 crore to Rs 73,000 crore a year). That's $6-12 billion in annual trading. After all, cryptos are traded 24x7, 365 days a year. Yet, crypto trading in India is minuscule compared to the daily global trade of $4-6 billion. At the same time, unsuspected millions are being duped by fake cryptos across the country with false promises of mind-boggling returns. Therein lies the dilemma, the debate and the lazy disposition of regulators. Bitcoin presents one of the trickiest regulatory challenges in recent times. Investors and millennials love it. Regulators hate it. And governments remain wary of its avatar as a currency as it challenges the might of the sovereign itself. This is clearly a historic tussle between the principles of free market and the universal expectation of regulatory oversight. There's need for a middle ground, but that's the toughest part. Depending on which part of the world you look at, it's either a currency, a financial instrument or a commodity/asset class. That's precisely why countries and regulators around the world have failed to tame it, despite their best attempts. Regulators lob the ball at each other. They do not take that call, anyways. Governments do. In April, Bitcoin is making history. In April 2017, Japan started accepting Bitcoins as a legal payment method. "We are (seeing) new type of compliance and governance now," says Kouhei Kurihara, President, Tokyo Chapter of Government Blockchain Association. In the US, states form their own laws. New York has issued Bitcoin licences. In Germany, its a financial instrument. Meanwhile, Canada launched exchange traded funds on Bitcoins/cryptos. In Switzerland, you can pay taxes with Bitcoins. The Japanese and the South Koreans are the world's biggest investors in crypto-currencies while the Chinese are the world's biggest miners. In India, there are telltale signs that rattled regulators and the government remained clueless for at least five years about the gaping need and the expanse and spread of Bitcoins and crypto-currencies. They buried their heads in the sand, wished away the Bitcoin phenomenon and issued warnings to cover their flanks. The RBI declined comment on the subject. SEBI and the commodities regulator, Forward Markets Commission (FMC), did not respond to Business Today's queries. "...the government is in consultation with SEBI and RBI. Bitcoin may not be a systemic risk in India but there has to be a law to take action," SEBI Chairman Ajay Tyagi said at an event. The government has tasked a committee headed by the Economic Affairs Secretary to examine virtual currencies. The report is awaited. Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar says: "Banning (Bitcoin) doesn't help because it's beyond the government's ambit. Trading should be looked at by Sebi because it's the regulator. People must be smoking something if they are dealing in crypto-currencies." Bitcoin's imminent death has been predicted for years. Yet, it has not just survived-but thrived. Thanks to the wild returns delivered. Depending on the lens you look at it from, it can be a punter's delight or an investor's nightmare. A BTC traded at around $1,000 at the beginning of 2017. It skyrocketed to an all-time high of $19,783.06 on December 17, 2017. Since it's not backed by any asset or sovereign guarantee, the BTC gyrates wildly. It can soar or slide as much as 40 per cent within hours. A BTC is currently ruling at $9,624. "It's a volatile asset. Those who can't take risks shouldnt get into Bitcoins," says Saurabh Agrawal, CEO and Co-founder, Zebpay, Indias largest crypto platform. While Bitcoin remains the king of the crypto world, there are many other contenders. This includes Ethereum (Ether), the next most popular crypto currency, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin. All of them take their cues from the BTC price and sync accordingly. Despite the emergence of 1,800 new cryptos since Bitcoin, its global marketcap is still nearly half of all cryptos traded. Ether accounts for 15 per cent. A supply cap of 21 million BTC by founder Satoshi Nakamoto explains the astounding rise in prices. Some 16.9 million have already been mined. In contrast, there are 98 million Ethers already in circulation at $686.13 apiece. TRADING UNABATED Jamshedpur-based Abhijit Kumar is a blockchain enthusiast and crypto trader and investor. He isn't worried about fluctuations. He caught the trend in December 2016 and is an early investor with 2.46 BTC. "I liked and loved the technology. I believe in Bitcoin as it is run by a community, not a government. After learning the truth about SIP, mutual funds and LIC, I was sick and tired of their tactics to make money. So I switched." It is because of investors like Kumar that two dozen Bitcoin/crypto platforms have gained ground in the regulatory vacuum. Others are being set up. At an RBI meeting of crypto platforms, there were 40 representatives at hand. The largest, Zebpay, began operations three years ago and it claims nearly three million users. Of these, three-four lakh are active users (those who trade at least once a month). "When price is on the rise, we see new investors. Now educated investors are also getting in. Going forward, people will invest in other cryptos as well," says Agrawal, who now also offers Ether, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash besides Bitcoin. Zebpay says nearly `100 crore worth of trading takes place on its platform every day. Coinsecure, which began operations in January 2015, claims to be the first real-time Bitcoin exchange in India. The company, co-founded by Benson Samuel and Mohit Kalra, was dabbling in Bitcoin mining between 2011 and 2013. Coinsecure claims daily transactions of around Rs 25 crore per day. It has 2 lakh registered users, of which about 40,000 trade every day. "Most platforms are brokers. They buy from one and sell to another. We're a realtime trading exchange," says Samuel. Unocoin, set up in December 2013, claims 1.1 million customers. It handles trading of $0.5 million to $1 million per day. ALWAYS A CURRENCY Nearly a decade ago, on October 31, 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto (widely believed to be a pseudonym) released a nine-page white paper 'Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System' on bitcoins.org (the domain itself was registered on August 18, 2008). He described it as a revolutionary technology: "A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution." The paper gave birth to the world's first decentralised, peer-to-peer payment system That paper aimed to change the world, and it did. It had conceived Bitcoin as a currency to challenge sovereign currency regulators, to rebel against banks, as well as those who had established a vice-like grip over the world's money transfer mechanism, imposing usurious charges for movement of money. And it succeeded. Nakamoto outlined the following 'properties' in his new electronic cash system that has no trusted third party: Double-spending is prevented with a peer-to-peer network; No mint or other trusted parties; Participants can be anonymous; Proof-of-work for new coin generation also powers the network to prevent double-spending. When BTC first transacted on January 12, 2009 (programmer Hal Finney received 10 Bitcoins from Nakamoto), it was already a rage among crypto fans. By February 2011, it achieved parity with the US dollar. Capitalising on that legitimacy, it rose 30 times in just four months that year. Bitcoins are fundamentally different from banks. While banks have a centralised ledger, Bitcoins have a decentralised ledger across all computers globally that gets updated every 10 minutes. All this is achieved using cryptography and hashing technology. For validating new transactions, the computers are rewarded with new Bitcoins - it's called mining and is the process of updating Bitcoins ledger (blockchain). As users increase, mining gets tougher. The technology was rewarding 50 Bitcoins every 10 minutes around 2010. Then it became 25 every 10 mins in 2012. Today, it's 12.5 per 10 minutes and by 2020 it will go to 6.25 BTC/10 mins. This requires faster processors and hence more and more power. Whoever validates it the fastest earns the new BTCs. And since prices were on the rampage, mining was becoming profitable. "When I started, I could mine from laptops. That's not possible any more." says Mohit Kalra, CEO & Co-founder, Coinsecure. How do you trust transactions? Most companies seek the blockchain trail from between 3-6 sources. Maximum affirmations of a trail make it the most trusted transaction in the blockchain. A QUESTION OF LEGITIMACY While Bitcoin rose relentlessly over the past five years, it was attracting millions of investors. Yet, neither the government, nor the regulators prevented its spread nor regulated its operations. As a result, Bitcoin and crypto platforms have not just flourished but gained legitimacy from the inaction. Wide-eyed investors continued to pour in hard-earned money in the hope of a quick buck. "Right now, a lot of regulatory authorities are looking into it. Since 2013, every year RBI has issued a warning. This is the maximum they can do. It's definitely not illegal," says Coinsecure's Samuel. While the government is still to decide the status of Bitcoins and cryptos, it has explicitly declared it's not legal tender. That implies Bitcoins can't be used as currency. "Since December 24, 2013, the government and the Reserve Bank of India have maintained the same stand on Bitcoins and other forms of virtual currencies. Through multiple notifications, the two parties have notified the public time and again that Bitcoins will not be considered lawful or legal tender in India," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in his Budget speech. "These are things we already knew. The government has not taken a view on whether these are legal or illegal," says Ajeet Khurana, Head, Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Committee, Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). "The government has chosen not to ban. We see this positively. If people still want to participate, we will come out with a framework." Jaitley also coined a new term: crypto assets. Perhaps, an indicator of the government's line of thinking that trading on Bitcoins/cryptos may be allowed either as an asset class (such as real estate) or as a financial instrument (like share trading). "It's an asset class and trading class kind of commodity," says Coinsecure's Benson Samuel. Meanwhile, trading platforms are grappling with allegations of a 'Bitcoin bubble'. "It cannot entirely be a bubble either because people now know how it works," says Samuel. Others are more guarded. "We can't say whether it's a bubble or not. It's for countries to do the research. We provide trading," says Unocoin's co-founder & CEO Sathvik Vishwanath. The Ministry of Finance established a panel - with officials from the RBI, SEBI, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and finance ministry - that called exchanges and invited regulations. The data was submitted to the ministry. "An RBI inter-disciplinary committee asked for feedback about six-seven months ago. We gave our feedback," says Unocoin's CEO Vishwanath. Meanwhile, Income Tax authorities sent lakhs of notices to crypto investors to explain their source of income and declare their crypto earnings. In February, government investigative agencies interrogated almost all major Bitcoin and crypto trading platforms for traders' KYC details. "In a few cases the cyber cell has taken data," says Kalra. But a few banks, particularly HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank, have begun a unilateral clampdown, asking platforms to freeze or shut their current accounts. Yet, other banks continue to allow it. "When the underlying activity is legal, not allowing legal methods to transact amounts to abuse of power," says IAMAIs Ajeet Khurana. Platforms say such disruption has hurt their business by 20-50 per cent. Fearing delinquencies, global banks such as Citigroup, JP Morgan and Lloyds Bank in the UK and US have banned purchase of cryptos on credit cards. Citi and HDFC have banned it in India too. PIT STOP: SELF REGULATION Crypto platforms always feared that the blurring lines between 'unregulated' and 'illegal' would invite an investigative onslaught or a regulatory clampdown. "The question of legality continues to exist. But we believe it's an unregulated market. We believe our regulation is good," says Zebpay's Agrawal. RBI warnings are always for the customer, asserts Coinsecure's Kalra. "No warning has said that we can't set up an exchange or a wallet," says Kalra. "Bitcoin is so disruptive. It's very difficult for any government to come out with regulations. Unofficially, bureaucrats and department officials have told us what to do," adds Kalra. "The RBI doesn't recognise us. They had meetings with us a few months back. We interact with the ministry of finance. They don't ask us to give any reports," says Agrawal. However, with the growing public scrutiny, crypto platforms decided to create a self-regulatory authority in 2016-Digital & Blockchain Foundation Assets Foundation of India (DABFI). "We talk to each other in the industry for governance. We follow everything that banks do in terms of KYC and transparency," adds Benson Samuel of Coinsecure. DABFI has morphed into IAMAI where the representatives of the crypto platforms are also joined by an RBI representative, besides those from the Niti Aayog and SEBI. All exchanges/platforms submit their revenue, profits, sales and inward and outward remittances to the RBI every year. Zebpay, for instance, engaged law firm Nishith Desai & Associates which recommended self-regulation: "Nishith Desai suggests we follow KYC norms just like the banking system. Also, an anti-money laundering policy, audit by third parties, proof of reserves of BTC/cryptos with the exchange. It has also recommended minimum capital guidelines of Rs 50 crore for Bitcoin/crypto exchanges," says Zebpays Agrawal. "All transactions are via bank accounts. No cash is used. We have a ceiling of a maximum transaction of five Bitcoins per person per day," says Unocoin's Vishwanath. To prove legitimacy, Coinsecure's Kalra even points out that the platforms actually pay GST on transaction fees: "We pay income tax and GST. At 18 per cent of all fees (0.4 per cent of transaction fees from buyers and sellers). We collect customer's KYC." "The adoption rate is rocketing. Crypto-currencies are also beginning to be understood by regulators. There is no chance of them being extinguished unless the internet turns off or every government in the world bans crypto (impossible)," says Michael Gord, founder & CEO of Ontario-based MLG Blockchain Consulting. THE BAN CLUB Nakamoto's remarkable invention has sharply polarised the financial world into Bitcoin/crypto-currency lovers and haters. For every Japan that has legitimised it, there's a China that has banned it. For every Canada that has allowed trading, there's a South Korea that has disallowed it. Fence-sitters, such as India, that let it take root are coming into their own. Bitcoin is still to recover from the twin blows during January and February, when, within days, South Korea banned it and India declared it 'not legal tender'. Soon after, Facebook issued a new advertising policy banning ads for "financial products and services that are frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices, such as binary options, initial coin offerings and crypto currency". Now, Google has also announced that it is changing its financial services advertising policies, effective from June 1, 2018. It will not allow advertisments about crypto-currencies across any of its platforms. Bitcoins price fell from a historic high of $19,783 on December 17, 2017, to a low of $7,178 per BTC, before recovering to above $9,000. Average daily transactions have dropped from over 0.4 million when the price was at its peak to less than half, at around 0.2 million now. The last time it was trading such numbers, Bitcoin was priced at barely $500. "The beauty of cryptocurrencies is that they are regulator proof. No government can prevent the rise of cryptocurrencies. They would need to literally shut down the internet to do so," says Thomas Glucksmann, APAC Business Development, Gatecoin. INDIA'S BITCOIN Banking regulators worldwide loathe crypto-currencies because they could undermine their position as the sole issuer of sovereign currencies. Thus, Bitcoins/crypto-currencies in India will likely be defined as an 'asset'. But that would be playing with fire. First, Bitcoin was always intended to be a currency. Second, they are already integrated into the formal system as a mode of payment and are being freely used as currencies. Hence, they ought to be defined as currencies and treated like one-with adequate restrictions. After all, the RBI is mulling its own blockchain-based currency 'Lakshmi'. "The need of the hour is to introduce the law in the shortest possible timeframe with the implementation of artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms," says Prity Khastgir, CEO at Tech Corp International Strategist. In most countries, the debate around the nature of Bitcoin starts at defining what kind of an animal it is. In India too, the prospective regulation has fallen through the cracks between the RBI, SEBI and FMC. But the biggest reason why a middle ground is needed is the fear that disallowing Bitcoins/cryptos will move them to the dark web-a bigger regulatory headache. "Bitcoin is a Trojan horse. Attempt to extinguish it will only serve to make it stronger. Bitcoin will survive for as long as the internet survives," says Brett Russell, author of 'Understanding Bitcoin in 46 seconds'. Days after POTUS Donald Trump imposed steep tariffs on steel and aluminium imports to the United States, the office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) - the body responsible for developing and coordinating US international trade policies - has challenged India's export subsidy programmes at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). While the first move will raise a tariff barrier and, thereby, make steel and aluminium imports (including from India) less competitive, the second is aimed at attacking all the key incentives that India provides to help its exporters remain competitive in global markets. This includes sector-agnostic schemes like the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme, Special Economic Zones and Export Promotion Capital Goods Scheme, among others. Sectors likely to be directly hit include those that are the most promising - pharmaceuticals, chemicals, information technology products, textiles and apparels. India's steel and aluminium exports to the US are just a fraction of its total exports of these two commodities and that, perhaps, explained the country's silence over Trump administration's tariff hike. But the WTO challenge is certainly aimed at breaking the backbone of India's export strategy. The US seems to be driving India for a hard bargain, a give-and-take dialogue. Hence, the US-India dispute settlement consultations that will follow should not remain a one-sided affair. India needs to defend its position. Joe C. Mathew MARKETS Ups and Downs Assets under management (AUM) of the mutual fund industry fell by 0.9 per cent month-on-month (m-o-m) to touch Rs 22,20,326 crore by February 2018. This is the third decline in the last six months - September saw a decline of 0.9 per cent and December saw a steep fall of 6.2 per cent. AUMs had reached an all-time high of Rs 22, 79,032 crore in November 2017. AUMs of all mutual fund categories fell in February except for liquid/ money market fund - it grew 1.4 per cent. Gilt funds witnessed the sharpest decline of 12.8 per cent; other exchange-traded funds category declined 4.2 per cent and equity-linked savings schemes fell 2.4 per cent. For the other exchange-traded funds, this is the first m-o-m fall since August 2015. Niti Kiran POWER Miles to go for Jaitapur N-plant During french President Emmanuel Macron's recent visit, India and France signed an 'Industrial Way Forward Agreement' to construct the worlds biggest nuclear project at Jaitapur, Maharashtra. Experts, however, say the real way forward is still miles away. The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) will set up six European Pressurised Reactors (EPR) of 10,000 megawatt (MW) with reactors supplied by French major Electricite de France (EDF) at the 900-plus hectare coastal area in Jaitapur. NPCIL, however, has only a capacity of 6,000 MW so far and EPR is still an unproven technology though these are third-generation reactors developed over a decade ago. Olkiluoto in Finland (1600 MW), Flamanville in France (1600 Mw), Taishan in China (2by1600 Mw) and a proposed project at Hinkley Point in UK (2 EPRs) are being built on this technology. However, none of the four sites are up and running yet. They are facing design issues, delays and cost escalation.PB Jayakumar "We had to deliver mobile phones for a certain government project. But the tender process took 9-12 months. When we placed the order, a newer version of the model was available and we bought it. My money is now held up because the government says I gave a different product." "We had to train government employees to use the solution deployed in their department. But they were not available. Sometimes they were on leave or in some meetings. Consequently, milestones couldn't be met and payments were stuck." Over the years, opportunities in the public sector have been a mixed blessing for the Indian IT industry. Its reflected in the examples above of IT system integrators who have worked with the Indian government. The sheer scale and magnitude of such projects make it worthwhile for the industry. Its not all about money - the experience of handling large government contracts raises the profile of an IT company and helps it in winning contracts elsewhere. Yet, Indian IT companies are wary of taking a sizeable exposure to the public sector given the inordinate delays in project execution and payments. Today, there are compelling reasons for Indian IT companies to raise their limited exposure to the government. "Companies are once again moving towards the public sector business in India because they have been hit by the slowdown in the US and Brexit in the UK. Besides, government is seen as the only sector that is recession-proof," says Srinivasan R., an independent IT consultant. The Indian government has emerged as one of the biggest spenders on IT products and services in its efforts to reach out to the masses. IT spending of the Indian government sector will reach $8.5 billion in 2018, an 8.9 per cent rise over 2017, according to projections by Gartner. Indian IT giants have increasingly shown a willingness to take up large government contracts. Despite the delays in the launch of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), IT services giant Infosys still signed up for the government contract - a hefty Rs 1,380 crore project in 2015 - to build the network software. HCL Infosystems was the chosen vendor for the audacious Unique Identification Authority of India project in 2012, a Rs 2, 200 crore contract. A problem for the industry is that government officials often don't take ownership of projects. "If there is any difference from what is written in the contract it will get rejected outright. There is a mistrust that everything is twisted," says a senior executive of an IT firm. Most bureaucrats are worried about their decisions coming under scrutiny later and it impedes speedy decision making. "They are either scared or they expect some grease money," adds the executive. E-governance professional Venkat Patnaik points out that in a federal system centre-state rivalry is an issue. He cites the example of a project in Orissa which got stuck because both the centre and state bureaucrats wanted to prevent each other from taking the credit. A former director at Oracle, who has also worked at Infosys and IBM, says that his experience with the UAE and Singapore governments was strikingly different. Key executives in these countries take personal interest and ownership of projects. "During the lifecycle of delivery they proactively give directions, unlike in India," he says. What makes government projects complex in India is not the technical aspects but the task of building consensus among multiple stakeholders. "It is very difficult to get them to agree." Indeed, the results are different when officers are empowered. Patnaik says that the state governments of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand are more efficient as officers there take initiative to get work done. The Delhi Metro is an instance when the government has run projects like an entrepreneur. E. Sreedharan took full responsibility and finished the project on time. While IT companies are increasingly eyeing government projects, they are cautious and are carefully evaluating the terms and conditions, says Sangeeta Gupta, Senior Vice President, Nasscom. The government too is keen to allay the apprehensions of the industry and streamline the entire process. IT giants including TCS, NIIT Tech, Wipro, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), TechMahindra and IBM, have worked with the Indian government on game changing projects but they have also raised concerns about the procurement process with industry body Nasscom. Gupta of Nasscom says that technology can't be bought under conditions such as unified codes or giving projects to the lowest cost bidder once technical specifications are met because this process doesn't give a significant weightage to innovation. An issue is that government contracts are drafted by experts who are rarely accountable for the programme and focus on plugging all kinds of shortcomings and financial leakages in the agreement. Due to this, many provisions are left ambiguous, making it difficult for the service provider. The vendor mostly has to fall in line in the event of a dispute since the only other remedy is years of negotiations, arbitration and litigation. "One of the biggest problems of public procurement is the expectation that contractors should have restricted or no profits. A business should be able to make money. Why be ashamed of it?" says Premkumar Seshadri, Chairman, CII National Committee on IT & ITeS. The tender requirements can be exclusionist too. The procurement policy has a pre-specified criteria of minimum turnover, revenue, employee, size, etc. that prevent small and mid-size companies from participating. In 2016, the government had directed all PSUs, central government ministries and departments to procure at least 20 per cent of products and services from MSMEs. However, the changes in the procurement process - while notified in the model Request For Proposal (RFP) policy - have yet to be implemented, says Gupta. Nasscom has already shared feedback on the model RFPs with the government and implementation of these issues will enable the industry to actively participate in the digitisation initiatives of the government, she says. There are several restrictive practices and little transparency in the procurement process, breeding inefficiency and corruption, says S. Suresh Kumar, Additional CEO, Government eMarketplace, Department of Commerce. "As a result, the government is not getting the right product at the right price," he says. The government is now working towards making the procurement process seamless. It has started the Government eMarketplace (GeM) initiative, an online portal offering a complete solution for procurement by government agencies. The exercise is now contactless (between buyer and seller), cashless and paperless, adds Kumar. Often, government officials don't have the technical know-how and understanding of the project scope, leading to problems and delays in software acceptance. This sends the project cost spiraling upwards, says Srinivasan R. This hurdle can be avoided by giving a proper brief in the first phase itself and issuing timely directives to facilitate project implementation. For instance, when TCS was in the initial phase of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) automation, the Companies Act itself was undergoing changes and until coders had the new laws, digitising the processes properly was a challenge. Similarly, the Aadhaar project was launched in 2011 as a voluntary identification initiative but its scope was expanded manifold and it soon became the basic source of identification for all Indians. As the project scope changes, so does the project cost. But a vendor is hardly ever compensated for such changes, says a senior e-governance expert who has worked on several government IT projects. In fact, if something doesn't go well, the contractor has to comply with the government directives to avoid protracted litigation and, importantly, prevent bank guarantees from getting encashed. Almost 100 per cent of government projects are backed with bank guarantees by the contractor. Srinivasan suggests that like in the US, where every government department has an IT arm, the Indian Government should work to have its own internal Chief Information Officer (CIO) network. The benefits of this model are evident. For example, to execute the Aadhaar project, the government got technology experts from the private sector, including some of the best of minds from Silicon Valley. As a result, irrespective of the issues that came up, it was able to implement the world's largest biometric ID system successfully. Prakash Kumar, CEO of Goods and Services Tax Network, says that for certain government projects, the National Informatics Centre hires people directly from the market to work on a project. "It is a better way to execute but then you need people in the government to manage the projects. Government departments don't have people with IT cadre." Sanjeev Gupta, President & CEO, National e-Governance Division, Ministry of Electronics & IT, has a different view. "Some years ago projects were always outsourced but now it is not correct to say that," he says. He has worked on over 125 e-governance services projects and most were done inhouse. He cites the instance of mKisan, one of government's mobile governance projects with 2.5 crore people registered, which was done in 3.5 months with five programmers only. "Private players were saying they would need 2.5 years and quoted 20 times more for the project than what I spent inhouse," says Gupta. The problem of payments is linked to the issues of procurement and contracting, says Seshadri. Many of the IT service providers are publicly listed companies and they shy away from government projects because payments are often not adequate and timely, impacting overall profitability and stock market performance. An executive with a system integrator (SI) that has worked on key government digital initiatives revealed several instances when products have been delivered but installation sites were not ready leading to payments getting delayed without any fault of the contractor. "The needless delay led to the entire warranty period being lost which impacts the contract margins." A senior industry executive, who didn't want to be named, estimates that almost 80 per cent of the receivables of Indian IT businesses can be attributed to government contracts. The problem is all activities happen in serial order when they should happen in parallel in digitisation projects, adds Patnaik. Another system integrator (SI) revealed to Business Today that the government was supposed to test the product they delivered over two to three months but the entire exercise took two years which increased the project cost considerably. This is because once the government makes an order, all the resources have to be maintained for the entire period even in case of delays. As a solution, it has become a standard practice for SIs to include the risk contingency cost in the tenders because they do foresee delays. However, he says, its not the right strategy and commitments should be met by both the parties. There should be a level playing field when penalty has to be accrued for delays, he adds (companies generally don't get any interest on payments whatever the delay). The government seems to be listening to the voices from the industry. For GST, Prakash Kumar, CEO of GSTN, says that they acknowledged the industry feedback on payment related issues and did several industry roundtables with Nasscom to sort them out. One major concern, he says, was that payments were made at the end of government projects. It was then that milestones were identified within the GST project and payments staggered accordingly. All said and done, for IT companies the public sector presents an opportunity like never before with the centre and state governments keen on easing the bottlenecks and ensuring speedy execution of projects. @sonalkhetarpal7 Don't judge a book by its cover. This adage holds true when looking at the new Samsung Galaxy S9+ because of how similar it looks to the S8+ launched last year. Switch on the Galaxy S9+ to be greeted by a 6.2-inch super bright infinity display. The fingerprint scanner has been repositioned below the camera module making it intuitive to use. In addition to the face and iris unlocking feature, there is the Intelligent Scan, a combination of the two scanners, that can unlock the phone in low or harsh light. However, it failed to unlock the phone when I was wearing sunglasses. The S9+ is the first S-series smartphone to have a dual camera for capturing DSLR-like depth images. Accessible through the 'Live Focus' mode, the depth effect can be adjusted while capturing an image or later by choosing a picture from the gallery. But it is the addition of dual aperture - f/1.5 and f/2.4 - in the rear camera (a first in smartphones) that helps S9+ capture stunning low-light images. It works just like the human iris. In the dark, the lens automatically opens up to the widest aperture available to let in more light. The S9+ can also capture super slow-motion videos at 960 frames per second. Another highlight of the S9+ is Bixby Vision with modes for live translation, image search, AR-based location search, QR Code scanner and more. Using live translation, I could instantly translate Spanish to English; the image search for chapatti using the Bixby food mode threw up suggestions like phulka roti and jolada roti, along with nutritional information, recipes, videos and an option to log the entry in Samsung Health app. But for all this to work, Bixby Vision needs internet connectivity. Samsung has introduced an additional security feature. To access the 'secure folder', one can add a dedicated fingerprint scan, different from what is used to unlock the phone. The Galaxy S9+ is a combination of functionality with great performance. And for Rs 64,990, it is the best flagship smartphone in the market. Dyson Pure Cool Link Tower Air Purifier Meet the Expert It looks good; and cleans indoor air with finesse. Dyson's Pure Cool Link Tower has an unconventional design - an oval bladeless fan at the top with a circular bottom housing the filter. Installation is simple - place the loop on top of the circular base and push it gently. The click sound confirms that the two are locked and the air purifier is ready to use. Use the compact remote to power it on/off, control fan speed, swing, turn on night mode, set timer and more; it can also be controlled using the Dyson app. None of the air purifiers we have tested in the past has managed to bring down the PM 2.5 level down so efficiently. In less than an hour, the level of PM 2.5 in my room was zero. The circular mesh at the bottom sucks in impurities in the air from all directions and purifies the air using the HEPA filter, before circulating it through the loop across the room. Although a silent operator, it gets a little noisy when pushing air at higher levels (7 and above). Priced at Rs 39,990, the Dyson Pure Link Tower is clearly one of the best air purifiers in the market. Michael Kors Access Sofie Smartwatch Beauty with Brain The Sofie smartwatch, from fashion brand Michael Kors stands out with its distinct glamorous look. The elegant looking watch has a 42-mm stainless steel casing, a 1.19-inch bright display, and is water and dust resistant. There is a button on the right, which, other than powering the watch, loads the watch menu on a single press and activates voice assistant on a long press. Sofie is compatible with iPhones and Android smartphones. I had to instal the Android Wear app to set up the watch. There are 30 MK watch faces that can be accessed from the app, and more can be downloaded from the Play Store. Sofie can be used to answer/reject or even dial a call, show feeds, set an alarm, send messages, track fitness routine, use Google translator and more. Apps can be installed on the watch directly using the Google Play Store app. Sofie packs in a 300 mAh battery that lasts close to 22 hours. The domestic sugar industry with its 530 operational sugar mills that produce 25 million tonnes (MT) of sugar and in the process pays Rs 65,000 crore as sugarcane price to 50 million Indian farmers every year, is not in the pink of health. Half of the 54 Indian sugar companies, whose financial figures (for FY 2017) reflect in the corporate database Ace Equity, have an interest coverage ratio lower than 1.5, the generally accepted safe level when it comes to a company's ability to service interest costs. Over 20 of them have a debt to equity ratio higher than 2, which, again, reflects a not-so-healthy balance sheet. These revelations should be of concern to the industry, the government and the sugarcane farmer today. Here's why. The country's sugar production is estimated to set a new record during the current sugar season (October 2017 - September 2018). The surplus stock is already pulling down sugar prices, indirectly impacting revenues of sugar mills. The arrears that sugar companies owe to farmers are also piling up - the latest count being approximately Rs 15,000 crore. The weak financial position of sugar companies, as projected by Ace Equity, makes the situation gloomier. Sugar Rush Ajay S. Shriram, Chairman and Senior Managing Director, DCM Shriram, an integrated player in the sugar sector, says in the last two months, his company had to write down the value of its sugar stock by almost Rs 65 crore. "The selling price of sugar has been going down. We don't know what it will be by March 31, when a view will be taken for the full year," he says. If DCM, one of the healthiest companies in the Ace Equity list, is feeling the heat, one can imagine what the industry situation in general is. Especially since most sugar mills are managed by privately-held and cooperative entities across the country. The Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA), the apex body of sugar manufacturers in the country, says that sugar mills are running at peak capacity and the sugarcane price payable to farmers is building up. "With the declined trend of ex-mill sugar prices, which is around Rs 3,000 per quintal in the Western part and `3,200 per quintal in the Northern part of the country, mills are incurring losses of about Rs 500 per quintal over their costs. This has led to difficulties in the payment of cane price to the farmers," Sanjay Banerjee, ISMA's spokesperson says. Sugar production in the current season, he adds, is about 4.5 MT more than the estimated consumption. Rating agency ICRA corroborates the ISMA view when it notes that sugar production is likely to set a new record by touching 29.5 MT in sugar year 2018 (SY 2018) and likely to outstrip consumption by around 4-4.5 MT. Sugar mills are expected to face pressure on sugar prices and profitability in the near term, which, ICRA warns, will in turn exert pressure on sugar mills' debt coverage metrics and adversely affect liquidity indicators, including cane payments. Why is the sugar industry so sensitive to sugar prices? The primary reason is that, unlike other industries, political considerations, and not economics, are what drive this sector. With 50 million sugarcane farmers, political parties always want high sugarcane prices; they also want low sugar prices to gratify the end customer; and also a viable industry. But the three scenarios can seldom coexist. "The government fixes the fair and remunerative price (FRP) of sugarcane. An assured and attractive return incentivises farmers to produce more. The sugar mills have no choice but to crush the whole produce, which, in turn, exceeds demand, thereby impacting the prices. We have a problem here," says Tarun Sawhney, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Triveni Engineering and Industries, yet another strong, integrated player in the sugar sector. Incidentally, FRP, fixed by the central government, is not the price that companies may finally end up paying to the farmer. Because, the state governments fix their own price, the State Advised Price (SAP), for sugarcane, which is higher than the FRP. Shriram of DCM Group calls it SAPP - state advised political price. Roughly five years ago, India was faced with a peculiar situation: cane prices kept rising - not FRP, but SAP - and became irrationally high without any correlation with any return to the farmer or with the sugar price. What followed was mounting arrears to the farmers for 18 to 24 months. But despite the indefinite delay in payments, farmers continued to produce sugarcane for two reasons - the money that was fixed by the government was still highly lucrative as compared to other crops; and secondly, they knew the money would come since they were not dealing with local mandis, but organised sugar mills that couldn't have run away without paying the arrears. Governments, Central and state, would find payment arrears too sensitive a problem, given the number of farmers involved. Although the government did intervene by announcing relief measures, it was a big wake-up call for all stakeholders. The Solution Suggestions that propose linkage of sugarcane price to the factory price of the processed commodity are aplenty. The Rangarajan committee, constituted by the previous UPA government, had even laid out a mechanism that could streamline farmers' compensation to provide a minimum guaranteed price within a very short time and a market-linked bonus at a later stage. However, no state government has accepted it in its entirety. For the short term, there are several measures being initiated by the government; some are in place, others are being planned. For instance, the Central government recently increased the import duty on sugar and brought in a monthly release quota for sugar mills to avoid panic selling by mills. It is also planning to allow exports to help sugar companies reduce their stockpile. Easier said than done, believe industry experts. That is because the international price of a kilo of sugar is approximately Rs 10 less than the domestic price. Someone needs to cushion the loss. "There was an outstanding scheme introduced by the Narendra Modi government in which farmers were paid the money that mills owed them on the basis of the quantity of exports the mills made," Sawhney says. "It wasn't a subsidy to the industry, but the government helped us liquidate our excess stock to some extent and, in the process, helped stabilise domestic sugar prices," he adds. As Ace Equity data indicates, financial weakness also means that the ability of sugar companies to raise debt is limited. Sawhney says the industry has always sought support from the Indian banking industry to survive. "When banks are withdrawing from such an important industry, which is considered even today as an essential commodity, it is time for some sort of structural intervention from a financing perspective. How do you expect the industry to support 50 million farmers if banking support is offered to a small portion of the industry? If there is pain, it will not be at the milling level and the farmer level. It is untenable socially and politically, and it is not a desirable situation for the industry either," he states. One solution could be making sugar a priority lending sector, but that may misfire as banks are already saddled with NPAs. Another solution is to reduce the dependence of companies on sugar production. Depending on the demand situation, they should be in a position to convert sugarcane into ethanol. But to make it a sustainable and attractive alternative business proposition, there needs to be predictability in the country's ethanol policies and pricing. Power generation using cogeneration technology is another option through which companies can generate revenues by selling extra electricity generated as a byproduct of sugar production to power distribution companies. However, having a remunerative sugar price is the easiest of all measures. "The government realises very well that the industry has gone through a very difficult time. There may be aberrations; some may feel the pinch too much, some others to a lesser extent. Hopefully, things will not go out of control once the realisation of a decent sugar price happens," says an optimistic Shriram. Additional reporting by Sumant Banerji and Dipak Mondal @joecmathew Would you like to know how many people have read this article? Or how reputable the author is? Simply sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too. From Paul Craig Roberts Website Prime minister Theresa May tells parliament it is .highly likely. that Moscow ordered the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter. (Image by YouTube, Channel: Guardian News) Details DMCA This morning I watched a briefing the Russian Foreign Ministry provided for the diplomatic community where international toxic substances experts presented information concerning the alleged nerve agent used in the alleged attack on Skripal and his daughter. This information has been known for some time, and none of it has been reported in the Western presstitute media. In the briefing the Russians once again relied on facts and existing agreements that govern the investigation of such events and asked why the British were demanding explanations from Russia when the British refuse to comply with established procedures and refuse to produce any evidence of what the British allege to have occurred. The response from the US and French embassy representatives was simply to state that they needed no evidence to stand in solidarity with their British friends, that Russia was guilty by accusation alone, and that they would hold Russia accountable. The benefit of this absurd response, which the Russians declared to be shameful, is to make clear to the Russian government that it is a waste of time to try, yet again, to confront unsupported accusations from the West with facts and appeals to follow the specified legal processes. The West simply does not care. The issue is not the facts of the case. The agenda is to add another layer to the ongoing demonization of Russia. Sooner or later the Russian government will realize that its dream of "working with its Western partners" is not to be and that the hostile actions and false accusations from the West indicate that the West is set on a course of conflict with Russia and is preparing the insouciant Western peoples to accept the consequences. The Russian official hosting the briefing compared the Skirpal accusation with the Malaysian Airliner accusation and the many others that resulted in instant accusations against Russia and refusal to cooperate in investigations. The Russian official also drew the parallel of the accusations against Russia with the US and UK false accusations against Serbia, which led to the bombing of Serbia, and to the false accusations against Iraq, for which Colin Powell and Tony Blair had to apologize, that resulted in the destruction of Iraq and the death and displacement of millions of Iraqis. The Russian official also said, pointedly, that the days were gone when no one challenged statements by the US government. The world, he said, is no longer unipolar. Russia, he said, does not respond to unsupported allegations. He also said that the way the Americans, British, and French are proceeding suggests that the Skirpal affair is an orchestration created for the purpose of accusing Russia. This conclusion is supported by the history of US and UK interventions. In recent times we have seen the West's orchestrated interventions based on obvious and blatant lies in Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, and the attempts to destabilize Iran and Venezuela. History provides almost endless examples of the lies used by the US and UK to implement their agendas. Nothing Washington and London say can ever be believed. Is it possible for Russia or any country to work with "partners" who are shameless, short on integrity and honesty, and have proven themselves unworthy of trust? Would you like to know how many people have read this article? Or how reputable the author is? Simply sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too. May speech on Skripal poisoning: 'Highly likely' Russia responsible Prime Minister Theresa May is giving an update to MPs on the poisoning of Russian ex-double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter. May told the Commons military-grade nerve agent from Rus (Image by YouTube, Channel: RT) Details DMCA British Prime Minister Teresa May accusing Russia in suspected nerve agent attack in Salisbury, England The last couple of weeks it's been hard to avoid the story coming out of Britain about a suspected nerve agent attack on former Soviet double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter now living in Salisbury, England. British Prime Minister Teresa May has called it "highly likely that Russia was responsible" and "a direct act by the Russian state against our country." As usual no evidence has been presented, just accusations and allegations with France, Germany and of course the Trump administration all in agreement with May's denunciation of Russia. Russia of course rejects the accusations as no clear evidence of its complicity has been presented. After seeing a video of the British House of Commons during Labor Leader Jeremy Corbin's speech where he was heckled by other MP's after he asked for evidence of Russia's complicity in the alleged attack it became clear judgment against Russia had already been reached, no evidence required. It seemed reminiscent of the early cold war 1950's. McCarthyism in the Congress was rampant where the senator from Wisconsin falsely branded hundreds in the State Department of being Communists-no evidence given, while in the then House Un-American Activities Committee people suspected of being Communists were brought before the Committee to ask them if they were members of the Communist Party. If they refused to answer or became circumspect during this "inquisition" many were blacklisted as suspected Communists got fired from their jobs and in particular some Hollywood actors who didn't satisfy the Committee weren't given roles in future movies. Charlie Chaplin was deported to England. Today in the west and particularly the US corporate MSM the demonization of Russia and President Vladimir Putin is virulent and unrelenting coinciding with the narrative of all major the governments in the west. Anyone outside the government or their complicit enablers in the corporate MSM who questions the demonizing of Russia is labeled as a Russian stooge, a Kremlin apologist, a Putin puppet. In fact employment of journalism skeptics or real investigative reporters by the MSM in the current MSM environment are rare, maybe even non-existent. In fact are there any of these journalists still working in the corporate media? Hmm, let's see. Seymour Hersh once wrote articles for the New York Times where he exposed the Mai Lai massacre. He also wrote for "The New Yorker" magazine. Now he's found occasionally in The London Review of Books, not exactly a widely read MSM outlet. Chris Hedges was once the Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times that is till he questioned "Dubya" Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq in a May, 2003 commencement speech at Rockford College in Illinois. The Times gave him a formal reprimand after which he resigned from the paper. Other than a few interviews on "Democracy Now" aired on some PBS stations he's nowhere to be found on the airwaves except on RT online, the outlet now forced by the Justice Department to register as a foreign agent under FARA, Foreign Agents Registration Act, a 1938 law against NAZI Germany. We all know the story of Gary Webb who was blacklisted from getting another job as a reporter soon after he was let go by the San Jose Mercury after he broke the story of the CIA's role in drug smuggling. Major news outlets like the New York Times heavily criticized Webb's reporting and the Mercury being a small market operation couldn't withstand the crushing influence of the Times so it caved in and let Webb go. A few years later not able to get another reporters job he committed suicide. Robert Parry was an investigative reporter for the Associated Press and Newsweek who exposed the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980's, the Reagan administration's secret operation swapping weapons to Iran for money to support the Contras against the legitimately elected government in Nicaragua. In the 1990's Parry founded the online Consortium News and was its senior editor until his death in January- not exactly a MSM outlet. Now what we DO get that purports to being the "truth" are video's of the "White Helmets" those supposedly humanitarian aid workers shown helping the Syrian people who have been seriously injured by the Syrian Arab Army in gas attacks and shelling against civilians. Hollywood last year gave them an Oscar. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121 "Rob explores the difference between a natural, organic, bottom-up connection consciousness and our corporately imposed top-down hierarchical collective consciousness. What Rob is speaking about is the difference between an artificial and ultimately stagnate way of organizing the world and a natural, organic growth, which starts with a seed, sends downs roots and sends up shoots which blossom. By returning to a Nature-based theory of connection, the Bottom-Up revolution brings us back into alignment with Earths laws, returning humanity to its place in creation. Like a good gardener, Rob works into the soil of his thesis different voices that exemplify how this Bottom-Up revolution is expanding in politics, business, religion, personal self-awareness and story. And he places technology where it belongsas a tool to further our connection consciousness, not an end in itself. The bottom-up revolution is about democracy finally living up to its original ideals, where we the people decide what we need from our society." Cathy Pagano, author of Wisdoms Daughters: How Women Can Change the World Would you like to know how many people have read this article? Or how reputable the author is? Simply sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too. From Counterpunch Tim Kaine (Image by Photo by Tim Pierce | CC BY 2.0) Details DMCA I've written a lot about Yemen over the past few years. And I knew the US Senate would never vote to end our direct participation in the Saudi war crime there that has led to the worst humanitarian crisis since WWII. I knew they -- like 60 Minutes and the rest of the US -- would kowtow to the extremist religious autocrats who rule over the most repressive regime on the face of the earth (with the possible exception of North Korea). I knew our leaders were bought and sold by Saudi money, which has also helped finance and arm violent extremists all over the world, for years. I knew they wouldn't vote against America's bipartisan participation in this genocide -- and they didn't. But sickening as this was, it was the statement by one of the senators who DID vote for the measure to end US involvement in Yemen that caused my gall to overflow: the sanctimonious prig Tim Kaine -- the man who would've been vice president. After casting a vote that he knew wouldn't matter (many Democratic "leaders," like Chuck Schumer, didn't even vote until the 51-vote approval threshold was passed), Kaine put out a smarmy, pious statement lamenting the millions of Yemenis who may starve and the tens of thousands already killed in a war that, he says, the US "stumbled into." It was this arrogant, arrant, brazen, soulless lie that outraged me to the top of my bent. Kaine knows -- as does anyone who has simply read the news in the past few years -- that it is an indisputable, established fact that the US did not "stumble" into the Yemen war. He knows the indisputable fact that the former leader of his party, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, very openly and deliberately and knowingly not only greenlighted the Saudi invasion but actively, openly and directly aided the slaughter in almost every way -- with weapons, with bombs, with US forces helping aim and target the bombs, with US warships helping enforce a naval blockade against the desert country that has plunged millions of innocent people into famine ... all to "restore" a "president" who was the hand-picked toady of the US and the Saudis in an "election" in which NO OTHER CANDIDATE WAS ALLOWED TO RUN. Again, all of this was done openly, directly, unashamedly: you could read about it in the most respectable newspapers in the country. The Obama administration didn't try to hide it. Indeed, in the last months of his presidency, Obama gave the Saudis a $115 million arms deal -- the biggest in the 70 years of US-Saudi alliance -- while Yemen was not only sinking into famine and ruin but also enduring one of the worst cholera epidemics in all of recorded human history. So no, Senator Kaine, the United States did not "stumble" into the Yemen war. It plunged whole-heartedly into the putrid slaughter, under the direction of the progressive, scandal-free Democratic president, Barack Obama, with the full support of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment and the mainstream media. Building on Obama's foundation, Trump has expanded the US involvement in Yemen, with more blunderbuss bombing and troops on the ground. But he is only carrying forward the policy that Tim Kaine knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, was willingly launched by his predecessor. Without, we should add, the slightest word of opposition from moral paragons like Sen. Tim Kaine -- or Hillary Clinton, or, at the time, from Bernie Sanders, who said during his campaign that the Saudis should be more militarily involved in the region. This is the tragic, sickening, indisputable fact: under the last two presidencies, Democratic and Republican, the United States has been directly, actively, openly complicit in a ghastly, ongoing atrocity in Yemen, an act of mass murder and deliberate savagery that has sent thousands and thousands of innocent human beings -- including thousands of children -- to their graves, and plunged millions more into suffering and chaos that almost none of us in the West could even remotely imagine. Yes, I hate Trump and all he stands for, and yes, I think it is an unbearable abomination that this two-bit, pig-ignorant criminal is now the president. But these indisputable facts about Yemen are one of the many reasons that I cannot join some of my friends and loved ones in nostalgic yearnings and fond reminisces of his predecessor, or pretend that my government was not also involved in horrific crimes and unspeakable moral depravity under his rule as well. And it's also why I cannot sit back and let abettors and accomplices of war crime like Tim Kaine now step forth and preen like moral paragons after watching -- with approval -- the innocent people of Yemen being starved and slaughtered in my name. When will we say enough is enough? When will we stop turning a blind eye to evil if it is committed by someone on "our" side, someone wearing the partisan livery of "our" team? And when -- in God's holy name -- will we quit pretending that "we are great because we are good," that when we take a three-year-old child and rip her small, frail body into shreds of bloody goo with our missiles, we are noble, we are righteous, we are a light in the darkness? I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the sanctimony, sick of the self-righteousness, I'm sick of the pious bullshit from mouths that are dripping with blood. I'm sick of the whole ungodly freak show of murderers, and apologists and cheerleaders for murder, prancing around in their pomp and their power while they grind innocent people -- children just as precious and valuable as your children and grandchildren, old folks just as loved and honored as your parents, men and women just as beloved as your spouses and partners and lovers and friends -- into piles of rancid viscera, into skeletal, fly-ridden living cadavers, starving in shelterless ruins. If you want to go on pretending that this is normal -- or that it was all normal before, but has only become bad now that a garish mob goon is in the White House -- then go ahead. I would love to live with such a comforting delusion myself. But it won't change the facts, it won't change the truth, it won't bring back the innocent dead -- or prevent the endless, continuing proliferation of death at the hands of the preening, lying, bipartisan murderers we keep supporting in the hellish kabuki of our politics. 1) Founders: Manish Lunia, Ritesh Jain, Deepak Jain and Abhishek Kothari went to the Indian School of Business together in 2009. They worked on multiple projects at the ISB and then pursued different careers. Lunia worked with the Aditya Birla Group; Ritesh was with Housing.com; Deepak was with Axis Capital, and Kothari worked for Fractal Analytics. Finally, they came together to start FlexiLoans Technologies in 2016, an online financing platform that provides quick and easy loans to micro and small businesses. 2) Big idea: By 2016, the Indian banks' NPA crisis had hit the peak, and small businesses without adequate assets were struggling to raise loans. Plus, no bank would give a business loan below Rs 10 lakh, took 30 days to process it and there was little transparency. The foursome decided to improve the process, and their start-up promised business loans without collateral within 48 hours. FlexiLoans has adopted a B2B model and tied up with e-commerce marketplaces such as Flipkart and ShopClues to lend to their suppliers and sellers. {mosimage} 3) Backers: The company raised a seed round of Rs 100 crore from a group of eight investors. In January 2018, it raised Rs 45 crore in debt funding. 4) What sets it apart: The low ticket size is helpful as the company caters to small businesses. Next comes the digital advantage. Both lead generation and application processes are online. The third differentiator is technology. The credit manager can figure out loan eligibility in five seconds from the time a bank statement is uploaded by the customer. The algorithms can break down a 500-page bank statement into several categories, analysing a seller's sales from e-commerce sites, transactions in cheque and cash, cheque bounces, top five creditors and other aberrations. Much of the transaction data is provided by e-commerce firms, helping FlexiLoans in decision-making. Would you like to know how many people have read this article? Or how reputable the author is? Simply sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too. From Our Future A movement without memory is adrift. And a movement that picks the wrong heroes is lost. Two milestones should serve as reminders to self-styled members of the Resistance. One marks a turning point in the life of an ill-chosen hero. The other is a reminder that true heroism calls for self-awareness, self-confidence, and self-sacrifice. We'll get to those milestones. But first there's the matter of torture. Donald Trump has nominated Gina Haspel to run the Central Intelligence Agency. Haspel, a career intelligence operative, led torture operations and ran a CIA "black site" in Thailand which was used to interrogate suspected Al Quaeda members after 9/11. She also signed the order to destroy the videotaped evidence of the agency's illegal acts, which itself appears to have been illegal. Haspel was apparently present for the torture of a detainee named Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, (It was incorrectly reported that she was also present for the torture of Abu Zubaydah, a more famous prisoner.) There have even been calls for Haspel's arrest. As CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou wrote in a Washington Post op-ed: "The message this sends to the CIA workforce is simple: Engage in war crimes, in crimes against humanity, and you'll get promoted. Don't worry about the law. Don't worry about ethics. Don't worry about morality or the fact that torture doesn't even work. Go ahead and do it anyway. We'll cover for you. And you can destroy the evidence, too." Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, notes that Haspel "was involved in one of the darkest chapters in American history" and has called on the CIA to declassify documents regarding her role in overseeing torture. And yet, in their understandable zeal to remove Donald Trump from the presidency, some liberals and Democrats are treating Haspel's moral peers like heroes. Consider this tweet from Samantha Power, Barack Obama's U.N. Ambassador, which reads: "Not a good idea to piss off John Brennan." Power was reacting to a tweet from Brennan, a former CIA Director, which addressed Trump after the brutal mistreatment and firing of FBI Associate Director Andrew McCabe, a day or two before he was due to retire with a pension. Brennan wrote: "When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America...America will triumph over you." Brennan's anger toward Trump may be welcome, but it should also raise questions about the proper role of the intelligence community in political affairs. (On a more positive note, Rep. Mark Pocan has offered to hire McCabe so that he can collect his pension -- and it may work.) Brennan's tweet was widely praised by some liberals, presumably including many who were appalled by Haspel's nomination. But Brennan, who replaced Haspel as head of the CIA's clandestine division, defended the CIA's use of torture in 2013. He agreed that some agents had gone too far, but disagreed with the Senate Intelligence Committee's conclusion, backed by other experts, that torture had not yielded "useful" information. Brennan also attacked the democratic principle of transparency. "I think there's been more than enough transparency that's happened over the last couple days," he said of the Intelligence Committee's report. "I think it's over the top." Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Would you like to know how many people have read this article? Or how reputable the author is? Simply sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too. See original here By Walter G. Moss What word best describes Donald Trump? Almost two years ago, I wrote "The Main Problem with Donald Trump: He's a Fool." And I continue to think a fool he certainly is. But that word does not quite get to his essence. After the revelation in October 2016 of Trump's comments in 2005 about how he could "do anything" he wanted with women, including grabbing them "by the p*ssy," a more apt word should have occurred to me, but didn't. Now it does: crass. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines crass as 1) having or indicating such grossness of mind as precludes delicacy and discrimination, and 2) guided by or indicative of base or materialistic values. The Oxford Dictionaries indicate that it means "showing no intelligence or sensitivity." Dictionary.com adds, "without refinement, delicacy, or sensitivity; gross; obtuse; stupid." Having identified crassness as Trump's trademark characteristic, we next turn to the historical question of what exists in the American character and culture that would make such a crass man appealing to enough Americans so that he ends up being our president. Historian Richard Hofstadter's Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1962) offers us some clues because Trump's crassness appeals to the anti-intellectual strain in American culture. In many ways Trump epitomizes this aspect. His global-warming denials and appointments of so many second-class minds like that of Energy secretary Rick Perry, who insists that "the science is still out" on climate change, are just two indications of Trump's attack on rationality. As conservative columnist David Brooks has written of Trump, "He has no ... capacity to learn. His vast narcissism makes him a closed fortress. He doesn't know what he doesn't know and he's uninterested in finding out." It is not coincidental that Trump's popularity has been greatest among whites who are poorly educated, older, religiously evangelical, or from rural areas and small towns. Anti-intellectualism, as Hofstadter noted at some length regarding evangelicals, was more common among these groups than among most other religious believers and non-believers, younger voters, and big-city residents. And let's not forget Trump's backing by Fox News, whose two most prominent personalities were its founder Roger Ailes (who advised the Trump campaign) and Bill O'Reilly. Both men trafficked in anti-intellectualism and ultimately left Fox News amidst accusations of sexual harassment. Whereas many Trump critics think him too crude, coarse, and vulgar, many of his admirers interpret his language as being down-to-earth and contemptuous of political correctness. To their minds he is a "straight shooter who speaks frank truths. He is the opposite of the intellectual or "egghead." Hofstadter quoted one right-wing novelist as defining egghead as "a person of spurious intellectual pretensions, often a professor or the prote'ge of a professor. Fundamentally superficial. Over-emotional and feminine in reactions to any problem." The historian acknowledged that many of America's Founding Fathers were intellectuals -- "sages, scientists, men of broad cultivation, many of them apt in classical learning, who used their wide reading in history, politics, and law to solve the exigent problems of their time" -- but the election of Andrew Jackson in the early nineteenth century signaled an important change. In his chapter "The Decline of the Gentleman," Hofstadter wrote that "the first truly powerful and widespread impulse to anti-intellectualism in American politics was, in fact, given by the Jacksonian movement." (Various sources have noted Trump's great admiration for Jackson, but also indicated it is based on a very limited understanding of Jackson's populist appeal.) It was during Jackson's second presidential term that Alex de Tocqueville's first volume of his famed depiction of America (Democracy in America) appeared. As one book of the Frenchman's letters states, the "spirit of [American] self-interest appears crass to Tocqueville's aristocratic mind, and he suggests that Americans judge the value of anything only by asking, 'How much money will it bring in?'" Following the Civil War, American crassness was satirized in The Gilded Age (1873), a novel co-written by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner. It was a popular success, and some historians have applied the term to the whole period from the 1870s into the 1890s. Various historians have stated that it was "the crassness and materialism of the period," the "relentless tawdriness and vulgarity" that earned it the label. Similarly, as mentioned elsewhere, "Ersatz, kitsch, ostentatious, vulgar, poor taste" -- Trumpian could be a synonym for any of them. At the end of the nineteenth century, one of America's best known writers was Henry James. Many of his novels and stories contrasted Americans and Europeans. Commenting on his stories collected in The Better Sort (1903), Ian Bell wrote, "they add up to a panorama of the vulgarity and commercialism of the age, in which innocence, sensitivity, and intelligence inevitably suffer, in which ... everyone and everything are sold... These stories are full of sensitive gentlemen and women who reluctantly serve, exist by serving, a crass civilization, who are themselves commodities or produce commodities." (James's brother, the philosopher William James, wrote of the U.S. "moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the b*tch-goddess SUCCESS. That -- with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word success -- is our national disease.") Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Would you like to know how many people have read this article? Or how reputable the author is? Simply sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too. Tuesday's debate and vote in the U.S. Senate on whether to end (technically whether or not to vote on whether to end) U.S. participation in the war on Yemen can certainly be presented as a step forward. While 55 U.S. Senators voted to keep the war rolling along, 44 voted not to table the resolution to end it. Of those 44, some, including "leaders" like Senator Chuck Schumer, said not a word in the debate and only voted the right way once the wrong way had won. And conceivably some could say they were voting in favor of having a vote, upon which they would have voted for more war. But it's safe to say that at least most of the 44 were voting to end a war -- and many of them explicitly said so. I use the phrase "end a war," despite the fact that Saudi Arabia could continue its war without U.S. participation -- in part, because it's easier, and in part because experts have suggested that Saudi Arabia could not do anything like what it is doing without the participation of the U.S. military in identifying targets and refueling planes. It is of course also true that were the United States to go beyond what was under consideration on Tuesday and cease providing Saudi Arabia with planes and bombs, and use its influence as an oil customer and general war partner to pressure Saudi Arabia to end the war and lift the blockade, the war might end entirely. And millions of human lives might be spared. Virginia Senator Tim Kaine has for years been a leading proponent of getting Congress to authorize wars, making clear that he wanted to keep those wars going but with Congressional authorization. This time was different. Kaine pushed publicly for votes to end U.S. participation in the war on Yemen. He and even his colleague from Virginia Mark Warner (!) voted to end the U.S. war. I'm not sure any senator from Virginia had ever done such a thing before. And, in fact, no senator from anywhere had ever voted on a resolution raised under the War Powers Act before, because this was the first time any senator had bothered to try such a thing. Kaine tweeted: "Millions in Yemen may starve and 10,000-plus are dead because of a war with no end in sight, that the U.S. has stumbled into. Proud to support this proposal to direct the removal of U.S. armed forces." "Stumbled into"? Forget it, he's rolling. And Kaine was the least of it. To watch Dianne Feinstein argue for ending a war had a very Twilight Zone aspect to it. Look through the list of who voted "Nay" and re-define them in your mind as people who under just the right conditions (possibly including guaranteed failure to reach a majority) will sometimes vote to end a war. I'd call that progress. But if you watch the debate via C-Span, the top question in your mind might not be "What incredible activism, information, accident, or luck got 44 people to vote the right way?" but rather "Why did 55 cheerful, well-fed, safe people in suits just vote for mass-murder?" Why did they? Why did they take a break for political party meetings in the middle of the debate, and debate other legislation just before and after this resolution, and walk around and chat with each other exactly as if all were normal, while voting for genocide? The facts of the matter were presented very clearly in the debate by numerous U.S. senators from both parties. They denounced war lies as "lies." They pointed out the horrendous damage, the deaths, the injuries, the starvation, the cholera. They cited Saudi Arabia's explicit and intentional use of starvation as a weapon. They noted the blockade against humanitarian aid imposed by Saudi Arabia. They endlessly discussed the biggest cholera epidemic ever known. Here's a tweet from Senator Chris Murphy: "Gut check moment for the Senate today: we will vote on whether to continue the U.S./Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen which has killed over 10,000 civilians and created the largest cholera outbreak in history." Senator Jeff Merkley asked if partnering with a government trying to starve millions of people to death squared with the principles of the United States of America. I tweeted a response: "Should I tell him or wait and let his colleagues do it?" In the end, 55 of his colleagues answered his question as well as any history book could have done. The ridiculousness of arguments for continuing the war was called out by senators on the floor. Senator Mitch McConnell and others made the claim made to them by Secretary of War ("Defense") James Mattis, that ending U.S. participation in bombing civilians in Yemen would mean more civilian deaths in Yemen, not fewer. Others trotted out the claim made by Trump's lawyers, parroting Obama's lawyer Harold Koh, that bombing a nation flat is neither "war" nor "hostilities" if U.S. troops are not on the ground being shot. Senator Bernie Sanders put a stop to such nonsense. He recommended trying telling the people of Yemen being bombed with U.S. bombs and U.S. targeting and U.S.-fueled planes that the United States is not really involved. The idea that the full Senate should leave to a committee a matter the committee had not bother to touch in years was also appropriately laughed out of court. Senator Mike Lee reassured his colleagues that ending the U.S. war on Yemen on grounds of illegality wouldn't slow or halt any other illegal US wars. (I'm sure you're relieved to hear that!) To their credit, Senators Murphy and Lee and Sanders were very clear that a vote to table, rather than directly vote on, their resolution to end the war, would be a cowardly vote not to have a debate and not to obey the U.S. Constitution. And to their greater credit, they went ahead and had the substantive debate prior to the vote to table. In the past on at least one occasion of the many times that we've seen such resolutions brought forward in the House, the war-proponents talked substance while the opponents talked only procedure. This change, too, was progress. Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121 "Rob Kall gives readers an important wake up call to the bottom up power that they have to protect their rights, powers, and freedoms. His advice applies to all aspects of life, including politics, economics, journalism, entertainment, and psychology and wellness. Kall's book explains the differences between the top-down leadership approach of dominating, fear based, disconnected authoritarianism and the bottom-up connection consciousness that emphasizes values, justice, fairness, equity, and kindness. This book helps readers see the whole elephant as opposed to the disconnected parts. Kall gives great advice as to intensifying, expanding, prolonging, and deepening connections. With his professional background, Rob Kall is the perfect person to write this book. This is a very well-researched book that includes dozens of insightful interviews with top-notch experts. Kall shows how bottom-up small acts can produce massive results. He emphasizes that since we cant avoid this emerging bottom-up connection revolution, we need to learn how to navigate and embrace it. This bottom-up leadership will result in power to the people. This is a fascinating and insightful book, especially in this new era of digital hunting and gathering." Larry Atkins, author of Skewed: A Critical Thinker's Guide to Media Bias Quicklink Not Found Sometimes, authors delete their quicklinks after publishing them. To see if the quicklink was renamed or re-published, please click here. Progressive Content Not Found Sometimes, authors delete their progressive content after publishing. To see if the progressive content was renamed or re-published, please click here. Would you like to know how many people have read this article? Or how reputable the author is? Simply sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too. War Remnants Museum (Image by Ann Wright) Details DMCA Fifteen years ago, on March 19, 2003, I resigned from the U.S. Diplomatic Corps and my position as Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy in Ulan Baatar, Mongolia in opposition to Bush's war on Iraq. My decision to resign over the Iraq war has been brought back into my mind vividly today in another U.S. ravaged, war-torn country -- Vietnam. Today at the War Remnants Museum in Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 45 years after the United States signed the Peace Treaty with North Vietnam ending official U.S. combat involvement that had, by that time, ended the lives of millions of Vietnamese and 58,000 U.S. military and over the past 45 years has been responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths from suicides, exploding ordnance and Agent Orange. No U.S. politician nor government employee has been held responsible for the carnage wrecked upon Vietnam, nor the lies which got the U.S. into the war -- not Presidents Kennedy, Johnson or Nixon, nor Secretary of Defense McNamara, nor Secretary of State Dean Rusk. In Iraq, 15 years later, the country is still embroiled in chaos suffering from the results of the decision of the Bush administration to invade and occupy Iraq and overthrow the government of Saddam Hussein, imprison thousands of Iraqis who while in U.S. prisons formed alliances to fight the U.S. Sectarian differences were exacerbated by the U.S. and horrific sectarian violence was unleashed by the U.S. actions. ISIS was formed to take advantage of the chaos the U.S. caused and tens of thousands more Iraqis and Syrians have died as a direct result of the rapid creation and expansion of the ISIS caliphate and the brutal attempts to stop it. No U.S. politician nor government employee has been held responsible for the carnage wrecked upon Iraq or Syria, nor the lies which got the U.S. into the war -- not Presidents Bush, Obama or Trump, nor Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, nor Secretary of State Powell. Millions of Americans protested the war on Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s. And millions of Americans protested the war on Iraq from 2002 to 2008. Tens of thousands of U.S. military drafted into the war on Vietnam protested that war. And thousands of U.S. military who had volunteered to go into the military, protested the war on Iraq. Today, at the War Legacy Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, our Veterans for Peace delegation attended the opening of the exhibition"Protest of the Vietnam War by U.S. Military" which was curated by associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies Ron Carver. Exhibition curator Ron Carver. (Image by Ann Wright) Details DMCA Several in our delegation are featured in the exhibition. Keith Mather (Image by Leslie Harris) Details DMCA Keith Mather went AWOL from basic training and became part of the "Nine for Peace," a group of GIs who "resigned" from the military in August 1968 in opposition to the war on Vietnam. They were arrested and taken to the Presidio of San Francisco stockade and charged with refusing a direct order to wear the military uniform and desertion. On October 11, 1968, a fellow prisoner in the stockade, 20-year old Richard Bunch was shot and killed by a guard when he attempted to walk away from a work detail. 27 prisoners in the stockade non-violently demonstrated against the murder by sitting down and singing "We Shall Overcome." All were charged with mutiny. Keith was sentenced to four years in prison and a dishonorable discharge. On Christmas Eve, 1968, Keith escaped from the stockade and went to Canada where he remained for 12 years. In the 1980s he quietly came back to the U.S. and in 1984 he was arrested for desertion, spent four months in confinement and then discharged from the military in May 1985. He is one of the persons featured in the documentary film on GI resistance to the Vietnam war, "Sir! No Sir." Mike Wong (Image by Ann Wright) Details DMCA Mike Wong also spent months in the Presidio of San Francisco stockade. He had refused orders to Vietnam and gone AWOL from the U.S. Army in 1969. He applied for a Limited Conscientious Objector status (objection to a specific war he felt was illegal and immoral, but not all wars), but when his application was rejected he deserted and went to Canada. He is also featured in the documentary film, "Sir! No Sir!" Susan Schnall (Image by Ann Wright) Details DMCA Susan Schnall was an active-duty Navy nurse who treated U.S. military returning from Vietnam and hearing theirs stories. In 1969 she and two others hired a small aircraft and dropped anti-war leaflets over five military bases in the San Francisco Bay area. Then she wore her uniform and marched at the head of the GI and Veterans March for Peace on October 12, 1968 in San Francisco. She was tried and found guilty by general court martial for conduct unbecoming an officer and discharged from the military. She is a strong advocate on Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign and has led public health delegations to Vietnam. JJ Johnson (Image by Ann Wright) Details DMCA JJ Johnson was one of the "Fort Hood 3," three soldiers of the US Army -- Private First Class James Johnson, Private David Samas, and Private Dennis Mora -- who refused to be deployed to Vietnam in 1966 and were planning on making a prepared joint statement during a press conference in New York City, but Johnson and Samas were arrested and Mora had to deliver the statement alone. They were court-martialed in September of 1966 and found guilty of insubordination. Samas and Johnson each received five years in prison at Fort Leavenworth. Mora received three years. The three eventually brought the case to the Supreme Court as Mora v. McNamara (389U.S.934), claiming that the Vietnam War was illegal, among other things. The court refused to hear the case. The Army later reduced Samas' and Johnson's sentence to three years which they served. Paul Cox (Image by Ann Wright) Details DMCA Paul Cox said that "on April 15, 1970, the war suddenly became immoral for me when the point squad of my unit asked our Captain if there were any "friendlies" in the area. The Captain said "No this is a free fire zone" and the point squad murdered 15 women, infants and old people. With no negative response from the Captain or other officers, I could no longer pretend. When I returned stateside, I and some others began an underground newspaper. Photos of Others in Veterans for Peace in the Exhibition David Cline (Image by Leslie Harris) Details DMCA David Cline (RIP) was a combat infantryman in Vietnam, where he was wounded twice, receiving Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star. Upon his return he became active in the GI antiwar movement, helping to publish the Fatigue Press which active duty GIs smuggled into Fort Hood, TX to build opposition to the war. He later became a national coordinator of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and president of Veterans For Peace. Gerry Condon (Image by Ann Wright) Details DMCA Gerry Condon was a Special Forces medic and refused to go to Vietnam and instead went to Canada and then Sweden. He is holding at t-shirt that says "Veterans Peace Action Team-Wage Peace." He is the current president of Veterans for Peace. Dennis Stout (Image by Ann Wright) Details DMCA Dennis Stout served with the 101st Airborne Division and attempted to report 14 war crimes including the torture and killing of innocent civilians and gang rape and received threats to his life. David Cortright (Image by Ann Wright) Details DMCA David Cortright published a GI antiwar newspaper at Fort Bliss, Texas called The Gigline. He is the author of the book Soldiers in Revolt: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War, published initially in 1975 and republished in 2005. He was the executive director of SANE, the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy from 1978 to 1989 and co-founded in 2002 the anti-war group "Win Without War." He is author of 20 books including Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas. Michael Sutherland (Image by Ann Wright) Details DMCA Michael Sutherland is one of the USS Intrepid 4 who deserted from the aircraft carrier when it was docked in Japan in 1967. He eventually went through the Soviet Union and ended up in Sweden where he married, raised a family and now has grandchildren there. Steve Kinnaman (Image by Ann Wright) Details DMCA Steve Kinnaman was assigned with the U.S. Army in Thailand and decided to go to Laos where he lived and taught English for four years before going to Sweden. He too married and raised a family in Sweden and has lived there for over 50 years!! Michael Uhl (Image by Ann Wright) Details DMCA Michael Uhl was in the US Army in Vietnam in 1968. After getting out of the Army, he spoke in 1970 at the War Crimes Tribunal in Stockholm, Sweden. The book he co-authored on the effects of Agent Orange on US military "GI Guinea Pigs" was put in the War Remnants Museum in 1994. He helped organize the National Veterans Inquiry and the Winter Soldier Investigation. In 1970, Uhl joined Ed Murphy in exposing the Phoenix Program, testified at the International Enquiry on US War Crimes in Stockholm, Sweden, and in 1971, he was called to testify before a US Congressional subcommittee investigating the CIA's Phoenix assassination program in Vietnam. Also in 1971 he toured Australia and New Zealand as a representative of the US anti-Vietnam War movement. That same year he co-founded The Safe Return Amnesty Committee advocating for a universal amnesty on behalf of Vietnam era military deserters. Safe Return was a predecessor of Citizen Soldier, which he also co-founded, and, until 1981, served as co-director, working on a wide range of campaigns advocating for GI and veteran rights. He co-authored the first book length treatment on the health effects of chemical herbicides (Agent Orange) on U.S. veterans of the Vietnam War. He is a Charter Member of Veterans for Peace founded in Maine in 1985. Other members of our Veterans for Peace delegation were active in the GI coffee houses around the U.S. Skip Delano (Image by Leslie Harris) Details DMCA Skip Delano was in the U.S. Army in Vietnam and upon his return to the United States in 1969, worked for the next three years with a group of soldiers named GIs and WACs Against the War that began publishing a GI antiwar newspaper L eft Face. Judy Olasov (Image by Ann Wright) Details DMCA Judy Olasov worked with "UFO" GI coffeehouse Fort Jackson, South Carolina, the "Mad Anthony's Headquarters" GI coffeehouse at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and the "Shelter Half" GI coffeehouse at Fort Lewis/McChord Air Base, Washington. Bonnie Willdorf (Image by Ann Wright) Details DMCA Bonnie Willdorf and her husband Barry Willdorf went to Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, CA and worked in the Movement for a Democratic Military (MDM) project, with the newspaper Up Against the Bulkhead and with the USS Coral Sea SOS Movement. She was the founder and first executive director of the Bay Area Military Law Panel at the National Lawyers Guild. David Zeiger and Ann Wright (Image by Ann Wright) Details DMCA David Zeiger is the producer, director and author of Sir! No Sir! a 2005 widely acclaimed documentary about the anti-war movement within the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. Chuck Searcy (Image by Leslie Harris) Details DMCA Chuck Searcy was an intelligence analyst in Viet Nam. He returned to Vietnam 20 years ago to help victims of Agent Orange and Exploding ordnance and has lived in Vietnam ever since. He started Veterans for Peace chapter 160 for veterans who live in Vietnam and is the coordinator of VFP's trips to Vietnam. It was a great honor to be with all of these people who challenged the American war on Viet Nan on the anniversary of the day that I resigned in opposition to another of America's war on a country that had not attacked the United States. Fifteen years after my 2003 resignation from the U.S. Diplomatic Corps in opposition to the war on Iraq, the U.S. is still at war in seven countries (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Niger and Mali) and is threatening war in North Korea and Iran. I am honored to have joined Americans who for decades have challenged successive U.S. governments that have thought the United States is an exceptional country and therefore can do what it wants to other countries -- invade, occupy and destroy them. I will continue to challenge the war-mongering mentality of many of our politicians and their propensity to lie to the American public on the dangers in the world that "require" the U.S. to wage war. Would you like to know how many people have read this article? Or how reputable the author is? Simply sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too. The Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha, a right wing Hindu nationalist political party in the Northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, released a Hindu New Year calendar which says that Taj Mahal along with several mosques and monuments from the Mughal era, are "Hindu Temples," Times of India reported Monday (March 19). The calendar refers to Taj Mahal as "Tejo Mahalaya temple." On the other hand, the Kamal Maula Mosque in Madhya Pradesh has been called as "Bhojshala" and Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi has been referred to as "Vishwanath temple." The Hindu Mahasabha calendar further termed Qutub Minar as "Vishnu Stambh," Atala mosque in Jaunpur as "Atla devi temple" and the demolished Babri Masjid in Ayodhya as "Ram Janam Bhoomi." Astonishingly, Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha's Hindu New Year calendar referred the Muslim holy Mecca as "Macceshwar Mahadev temple." Hindu Mahasabha National Secretary Pooja Shakun Pandey, while speaking to The Times of India, said that the organization resolves to make this India a Hindu Rashtra (religious Hindu state). She also hopes that the government will accept their demand and declare the country a Hindu nation. Pandey accused the Muslims of turning Hindu religious heritage sites into mosques and pledged to restore their original names. Meanwhile, Maulana Khalid Rasheed Firangi Mahli, who belongs to All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), has termed the claims made by Hindu Mahasabha as baseless. He said that dubbing the holy site of Mecca a Hindu temple is against the spirit of secularism. The Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP The Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha's new Hindu calendar coincided with attempts by the ruling Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) to re-write the history of India. The BJP government has appointed a committee with the task of using finding evidence such as archaeological finds and DNA to prove that today's Hindus are directly descended from the land's first inhabitants many thousands of years ago, and make the case that ancient Hindu scriptures like Mahabharata and Ramayan are fact not myth. Reuters news agency has published deliberations of the committee. Government documents refer to the panel as the committee for the "holistic study of origin and evolution of Indian culture since 12,000 years before present and its interface with other cultures of the world". The group of experts, which comprise a geologist, archaeologists, Sanskrit scholars and two bureaucrats, met in January in New Delhi, the Reuters reported. According to the minutes of the meeting, which the news agency said it accessed, the panel aims to use archaeological data and DNA evidence to prove that Hindus descended from the earliest inhabitants of India and that Hindu scriptures were history, not mythology. "I have been asked to present a report that will help the government rewrite certain aspects of ancient history," Reuters quoted the committee's chairperson, KN Dikshit, as saying. Sikshit said it was "essential to establish a correlation" between ancient Hindu scriptures and evidence that Indian civilization is several thousands of years old. The current view is that people from Central Asia arrived in India 3,000 to 4,000 years ago. Hindu scholars argue that history books in India try to ignore the dominant Hindu ethos of the country and its history before the Islamic period. India's greatest historical and cultural document, the Mahabharata, is hardly given any attention in the schools. So too, the Vedas, Ramayana, Puranas, Buddhist Jatakas and other prime historical and cultural documents of the country are ignored because of their religious overtones. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a case of alleged loan fraud to the tune of Rs 824.15 crore against Chennai-based Kanishk Gold Pvt Ltd. The case has been registered following a complaint from a 14-bank consortium led by the State Bank of India (SBI). The central agency later carried out searches at the official and residential premises of promoters of Kanishk Gold Pvt Ltd as it began investigation in the Rs 824-crore loan fraud case. Kanishk is owned by promoters and directors Bhoopesh Kumar Jain and his wife Neeta Jain. The CBI officials said they have received the complaint and were in touch with the bank because of certain loopholes in the complaint which were to be rectified by the bank. Kanishk Gold used to manufacture gold jewellery, which was marketed under the brand name 'Krizz'. It sold its products via distributors till 2014, but changed business model to B2B (business-to-business) in 2015 supplying to large retail jewellers, the SBI said in the complaint to the CBI. The loan accounts of the company were taken over by the SBI from the ICICI in 2008. Its banking arrangement was converted into a multiple banking arrangement in March 2011, the biggest state-owned lender said.The 14-bank consortium led by the SBI had given a loan of Rs 842.15 crore to Kanishk Gold. However, with interest on the principle amount, the total figure would go over Rs 1000 crore. Kanishk first defaulted reportedly in March 2017 in interest payments to eight member banks. And later, stopped payments to all 14 banks. In its complaint, SBI alleged that while Rs 824.15 crore have been defrauded from the consortium, the security available with the it to cover the loss is only around Rs 156.65 crore. Among the banks who lent money to Kanishk are: the SBI, PNB, Union Bank of India, Syndicate Bank, Bank of India, IDBI Bank, UCO Bank, Tamilnad Mercantile Bank, Andhra Bank, Bank of Baroda, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Central Bank of India and Corporation Bank. The SBI has the highest exposure of Rs 215 crore following by PNB which has given Rs 115 crore to Kanishk. The Union Bank of India and Syndicate Bank offered Rs 50 crore each. The lenders visited Kanishk's corporate office, factory and showroom on May 25, 2017. However, the office and showrooms were shut by then. The State Bank informed the CBI about the fraud on January 25 and charged Kanishk with 'manipulating records, shutting shop overnight'. Bankers were unable to contact the Kanishk promoters. Last year in November, the SBI declared the account fraudulent to the RBI. The company's account was declared fraud and non-performing asset (NPA) in 2017-18 by various lending banks, it alleged. SBI has alleged that the company had "misrepresented and falsified" the records and financial statements of the company to show a "rosy picture" since 2009 to avail credit facilities from it. Kanishk Gold Pvt Ltd and its directors allegedly diverted the funds detrimental to the rights and interests of the bank, the bank said. This is the latest in a series of bank frauds unearthed in the last couple of months. In February, the PNB detected fraudulent transactions of over Rs 11,000 crore which later turned into a Rs 13,000 crore scam. Earlier this week, the Economic Offences Wing of Delhi Police uncovered seven cases of alleged loan fraud of Rs 3.5 crore at Punjab National Bank. In another case, the Economic Offences Wing of Mumbai police arrested three directors of a private firm - Parekh Alluminex Ltd - for allegedly defrauding banks of Rs 4,000 crore. Would you like to know how many people have read this article? Or how reputable the author is? Simply sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too. From Alternet The Cambridge Analytica scandal revelations keep surprising us. Steve Bannon (Image by flickr.com) Details DMCA The media frenzy and political umbrage over the apparent theft of upwards of 50 million Facebook user profiles in 2014 by Cambridge Analytica, a British-based voter targeting operation co-founded by Steve Bannon, to assist Trump's 2016 campaign is overlooking a critical fact: Bannon's data didn't deliver. Cambridge Analytica developed psychological profiles of millions of American voters, yet its data wasn't used by the Trump campaign in the runup to Election Day, its top officials have said. Apparently, the profiles weren't as current as Republican National Committee voter files, nor as effective as using Facebook's platform for political advertising in 2016. "When 60 Minutes asked Trump digital director Brad Parscale about Cambridge, though, he said that his team never actually used the data," Colin Delany, an online media expert, noted Sunday for Epolitics.com. "Instead, they could target voters and potential donors more effectively using the information they gathered by actually running Facebook ads and measuring the results." The 2014 theft of the Facebook data -- the subject of weekend exposes in the New York Times and abroad -- also isn't news. That data breach, which raises all kinds of user privacy questions apart from the political arena, was first reported by the Guardian in late 2015. The Guardian then noted that Cambridge Analytica was using the pilfered data while backing Ted Cruz's presidential bid. "A little-known data company, now embedded within Cruz's campaign and indirectly financed by his primary billionaire benefactor, paid researchers at Cambridge University to gather detailed psychological profiles about the US electorate using a massive pool of mainly unwitting US Facebook users built with an online survey," the Guardian's Harry Davies reported. The parent company boasted of its "massive data pool of 40+ million individuals across the United States -- for each of whom we have generated detailed characteristic and trait profiles." Nonetheless, the weekend reports in the New York Times and London newspaper, the Observer, have caused media and political firestorms. On Friday, Facebook announced it was suspending its relationship with Cambridge Analytica, prompting questions about why it hadn't done so sooner if its user data had been stolen. Facebook also suspended the account of Christopher Wylie, a Cambridge Analytica whistleblower in the newspaper stories, drawing condemnation for what "they have known privately for two years." Meanwhile, on the domestic political front, there were calls for more investigations and regulatory oversight. A Democratic senator demanded that Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee. A House Intelligence Committee Democrat echoed that demand. In Massachusetts, the state attorney general, another Democrat, announced she was launching an investigation. An ex-Federal Trade Commission official speculated that the Facebook breach may have violated a 2011 federal court order protecting user privacy, exposing the social media company to multi-millions in fines. In Europe, the political hyperbole was even more extreme, because Cambridge Analytica worked for the pro-Brexit campaign, which won a British national vote to leave the European Union and pre-dated Trump's election as president in November 2016. "One member of Parliament, Jo Stevens, said Facebook's relationship with its users' personal data 'reminds me of an abusive relationship where there is coercive control going on,'" the Washington Post reported. "At another point in the [Parliament] hearing, fellow lawmaker Rebecca Pow questioned whether Facebook was a 'massive surveillance operation.'" Some Perspective, Please Perhaps some of the outrage and umbrage comes from the growing realization that social media platforms aren't just friendly places where like-minded people associate, but companies with an advertising business model based on surveillance, data collection and targeting audiences -- whether selling consumer goods or political messages. Nonetheless, the current media and political frenzy is ignoring a critical point -- that Trump's campaign didn't use Cambridge Analytica voter profiles because they weren't as current or as effective as the RNC's data and Facebook's advertising platform. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Being the continuation of Preface to the book in my, Steven Jonas', voice, Part 1 of which was published on OpEdNews on March 8, 2018. This Preface, was written for the current, third version of the book published in 2013. (The first version was published in 1996, by the Thomas Jefferson Press [an imprint of mine] under the fictional author's name [unfortunately mis-spelled "Johnathan"].) The Preface is quite long and is in this series be published in three parts. Indeed, it should have been published before the second installment, which was the book's Chapter One, written in the voice of the fictional author, Jonathan Westminster. Please forgive the mistake. For continuity, following the publication of the Preface (in its three parts), I will be beginning the body of the book again, with Chapter One. III. The Modern U.S. Republican Party As it happened, I was one of those political observers who, after the election of 1980, said "oh well, we'll have to live through four years of Reagan. The electorate will see through him immediately and surely the Democratic Party will be able to mount an effective opposition to him and his policies. Let's hope he won't do too much damage. Then we can get the Democrats back in in 1984." Little did I know how effective Reagan and the Right-wing Republican machine would be at mobilizing various social prejudices for political purposes. So doing in turn enabled them to fairly easily pull the "economic wool" over the eyes of too many white working-class Americans, who became aptly known as "Reagan Democrats." This assured his easy re-election in 1984, although the ineffectiveness of Walter Mondale as the Democratic candidate and of the Democratic Party as a party certainly helped. So what did Reagan do? First, he clearly indicated that he was going to follow Richard Nixon's "Southern [let's use racism to our advantage] Strategy." For example, he began his primary campaign in 1980 by giving a speech at Philadelphia, Mississippi, which had been the site of the famous murder of the three young civil rights workers, James Cheney, Andrew Goodman (who happened to be a son of a close friend of my mother's), and Michael Schwerner, in the "Freedom Summer" of 1964. Already in his primary campaign of 1976 Reagan had taken to describing welfare recipients as "Welfare Queens" from Chicago's South Side (an African-American neighborhood). This despite the fact that majority of persons receiving Aid to Mothers with Dependent Children (the formal name of the law) were white. Further, in 1979 his campaign was already at work to mobilize the right-wing Christian vote for him (6). Reagan Airport. Lots of glitter, just like the man himself. (Image by michaeljosh) Details DMCA Although the Christian Temperance Movement was one of the early supporters of the nascent Republican Party in the 1850s, and the Republicans had led the battle for Prohibition partly because of that alliance, the Reagan campaign's move marked the first time in the modern U.S. that religion and religious prejudice against all so-called "non-believers" was mobilized for political purposes. "Non-believers" for the Christian Right means persons of whatever religious or non-religious belief who do not happen to agree with their stance on a variety of social and political matters. That stance is usually based on their interpretation of selected passages of Biblical text as found in one particular English translation of the Bible, the "King James Version." (It should be noted that that translation was actually the product of the work of 52 selected academics, scholars and theologians in early 17th century England.) By the mid-80s, turning the emerging AIDS crisis to political use, the Reaganite Republicans had added homophobia to their own rapidly developing arsenal of hate politics. Over the time from Reagan, through G.H.W. Bush to Bill Clinton, I observed what the Republican Party was doing and becoming. European history has provided a useful background for understanding the implications of those developments. Religious anti-Semitism had been developed in the Roman Catholic Church starting as early as the Fourth Century, C.E. Political anti-Semitism, that is the use of anti-Semitism specifically both for party/electoral political purposes and for political mass mobilization, was developed in Europe in the late 19th century. We know well what political anti-Semitism eventually led to on that continent. On the North American continent racism, the White Supremacy Hypothesis, and anti-Native American prejudice had been used politically on the territory of what became the United States since well before there was a United States, beginning with the institution of slavery in 1619. But here was a political party that was attempting to mobilize additional prejudices and hatreds, such as homophobia, for political purposes. And they were doing it in a political context where no one and certainly no political party (namely the Democrats) of any influence was challenging them on that fact. And so, I considered a variety of possible scenarios of what might happen if they kept going, unchallenged by any opposition that focused on what they were really doing and what they were really after. Of course, the true Reaganite political/economic agenda had not changed much since the time right-wing capitalists had begun challenging the New Deal, from the time of its inception in 1930s (7). But just as at the time of this present writing that was hardly an agenda that they could run and expect to win with. The Right-Wing Republican economic agenda, then as now, included such items as: increasing the share of both national income and national wealth going to the super-rich (the distance, in dollars and political power between the "merely rich" --usually millionaires--and the super-rich --multibillionaire class--is enormous, as to almost constitute a social divide between the two wings of the privileged); increasing the burden of state and local taxation, especially regressive taxation; priming the economic pump (if any priming were to be done) with increased military but not needed national domestic spending; cutting government aid to education at all levels; destroying the middle class's safety net, including programs such as social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and so on; punishing the poor for being poor by eliminating programs aimed at overcoming or compensating for poverty; ravaging the environment for the benefit of both extractive industries and property developers; breaking what was left of the American trade union movement for the benefit of corporate profits; encouraging the concentration of industrial ownership and the decline of competition, leading to the contraction of the so-called "free market" for goods and services; encouraging the export of capital; reducing to the greatest extent possible the regulation of the extractive industries, the financial markets, and the workplace. And so, the Republican Party turned to a focus on what are politely called the "Social Issues" but which are correctly called the "Issues of Personal Prejudice;" those of racism, religious discrimination, homophobia, and more recently, Islamophobia (8). The preceding should not be read as exculpating the Democrats, who, on far too many occasions, simply did nothing to stop the Republicans or actively collaborated, albeit more surreptitiously and behind a curtain of demagogic populism, in pushing for exactly the same economic and military goals. Bob Corker - Won his seat in 2006 by running a last-minute racist ad against Harold Ford, Jr. (Image by DonkeyHotey) Details DMCA I also looked at where the political use, particularly of anti-Semitism (not in play [yet] in the United States, for obvious reasons), took the German Nazi Party (which represented the same economic interests that the Republican Party represents) and Germany. (One should note that there have been a wide variety of fascist governments appearing in countries around the world, most recently in Latin America in the 1970s [e.g., Chile, Argentina, and Brazil], since the first of them arose in Hungary in 1920, under Admiral Horthy. None of them ever ran on as virulent a form of anti-Semitism that Nazi Germany did.) Then, over time, I began to put the pieces together to project where the use of the several prejudices mobilized for political purposes, in defense of the same economic interest, might take the Republican Party in this country, in the absence of course of a real opposition to them. For example, see "The Second Final Solution," described in Chap. 18. If you think that that projection is far-fetched, in North Carolina in 2012 a man described as a "pastor," one Charles Worley, seriously proposed rounding up all "lesbians, queers and homosexuals," and depositing them in an open camp surrounded by an electrified fence, and except for air-dropping food, leaving them there to die (9, 10). When he delivered his proposal as part of a sermon in his church he received a standing ovation from his congregation. In Germany, there was, on paper, a real opposition to the Nazis. But the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Socialist Party of Germany (SPD)--a variant of early social democracy--were at each other's throats almost as much as they were opposed to the Nazis. The former, under the thumb of Josef Stalin's Communist International, spent much of its time attacking the "social fascists" of the latter, believing that "after Hitler, our turn would come" (11). There were also centrist parties opposed to the Nazis. But given the Socialist/Communist split in Germany, no united front ever developed. In the United States, however, the task for the Right was even easier. Any meaningful truly left-wing political presence was destroyed by a combination of McCarthyite "anti-Communism" and the continuing assault on the never-too-strong-anyway U.S. labor movement following the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947. Then in the 1980s, whatever had been left of the very modest New Dealist left-wing influence in the Democratic Party was destroyed by its takeover by the "Republican-lite" Democratic Leadership Council, otherwise known as "DINO's," Democrats In Name Only. One need only look at the record of President Bill Clinton. For example, he destroyed most of what was left of the welfare system at the time, opened the floodgates for the export of U.S. capital, provided for the concentration of ownership of the print and electronic media, in his first State of the Union Address announced that "the era of big government was over" (a very Reaganite sentiment), and went to war in the former Yugoslavia (the first major war fought under the pretext of "humane intervention") without asking for Congressional approval, as required under the Constitution. Turning back to the German lessons-of-history, Hitler still would have faced real, substantive opposition from both the Communist Party of Germany and the Socialist Party of Germany, despite the fact that they were never able to form a United Front against him. That is, if they had they been given a chance to get organized. However, from the day (January 30, 1933) he was appointed Chancellor of the Germany by the then President of the Weimar Republic, former Field-Marshall Paul von Hindenburg (known as the "first Hindenburg Disaster," the second being the one that four years later overcame the hydrogen-filled airship of the same name at Lakehurst, NJ), he used force to secure his control of the German government. Within 24 hours of taking power, the Nazis began rounding up Communists and imprisoning them in the first concentration camps. Given that the DLC-Democrats offered no real opposition and in some cases a good deal of support for the real goals of the Republican Religious Right, I figured that nothing like what had happened in Germany would be necessary for the latter as they began to take power here. Nevertheless, I knew that, given their true economic and political program, which would necessarily lead to increasing economic and social misery for an ever-increasing number of Americans, in order to remain in power, the Republican Religious Right would eventually have to impose some version of fascism here. And so, after pondering the problem off and on for a number of years, I came up with the scenario of this book. "The 15% Solution" was actually a real, named Christian Rightist/Republican electoral strategy designed in the early 1990s to take over the political system with a minority of eligible voters voting. It is explained in detail in chap. 2. I surmised that the Republican Religious Right, given the lack of any meaningful opposition, would triumph at the polls and thus take power electorally (just as its current incarnation, the carefully manufactured "Tea Party," is currently in the process of doing). They would not need to use oppressive force to stay in power until some years had passed. They would essentially use the U.S. Constitution and Constitutional processes to take over the system and eventually destroy the remnants of Constitutional democracy, already drastically diminished through bipartisan complicity. IV. The Republican Party and the "Rightward Imperative" Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Would you like to know how many people have read this article? Or how reputable the author is? Simply sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too. From Dispatches From The Edge Italy, Germany and the EU's Future Jeremy Corbyn, Labour leader (Image by Jimbob283) Details DMCA More than a quarter of a century ago, much of the European center-left made a course change, edging away from its working class base, accommodating itself to the globalization of capital, and handing over the post World War II social contract to private industry. Whether it was the "New Labour" of Tony Blair in Britain or Gerhard Schroeder's "Agenda 2010" in Germany, social democracy came to terms with its traditional foe, capitalism. Today, that compact is shattered, the once powerful center-left a shadow of its former self, and the European Union -- the largest trading bloc on the planet -- is in profound trouble. In election after election over the past year, social democratic parties went down to defeat, although center-right parties also lost voters. Last year's election in the Netherlands saw the Labor Party decimated, though its conservative coalition partner also took a hit. In France, both the Socialist Party and the traditional conservative parties didn't even make the runoffs. September's elections in Germany saw the Social Democrats (GPD) take a pounding, along with their conservative alliance partners, the Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union. And Italy's center-left Democratic Party was decisively voted out of power. It would be easy to see this as a shift to the right. The neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany (AfG) has 92 seats in the Bundestag. The Dutch anti-Muslim Party for Freedom picked up five seats. The extreme rightist National Front made the runoffs in France. The racist, anti-immigrant Northern League took 17.5 percent of the Italian vote and is in the running to form a government. But the fall of the center-left has more to do with the 1990s course change than with any rightward shift by the continent. As the center-left accommodated itself to capital, it eroded its trade union base. In the case of New Labour, Blair explicitly distanced the Party from the unions that had been its backbone since it was founded in 1906. In Germany, the Social Democrats began rolling back the safety net, cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy, and undermining labor codes that had guaranteed workers steady jobs at decent wages. The European Union -- originally touted as a way to end the years of conflict that had embroiled the continent in two world wars -- became a vehicle for enforcing economic discipline on its 27 members. Rigid fiscal rules favored countries like Germany, Britain, Austria and the Netherlands, while straitjacketing countries like Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland, particularly in times of economic crisis. Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Agriculture Robots Market Share and Analysis by 2025 https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=B&rep_id=17 https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=T&rep_id=17 https://www.tmrresearch.com/agriculture-robots-market Global Agriculture Robots Market: SnapshotRobots are poised to replace agricultural hands. They can pluck fruits, sow and reap crops, and milk cows. They carry out the tasks much faster and with a great degree of accuracy. This coupled with mandates on higher minimum pay being levied in most countries, have spelt good news for the global market for agriculture robots.Reason enough for the industry to cheer. Companies are increasingly investing in developing more efficient robots leveraging cutting-edge technologies to further their market positions. They are taking to modern technologies such as cloud, data analytics, and Internet of Things (IoT) to create more autonomous and unmanned robots that will drastically reduce the need for human intervention.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Tractors, for example, have become increasingly autonomous, robotic milking parlors have become widespread, and drones are slated to change the contours of farming in the near future. In fact, unmanned remote-controlled helicopters are already being used for spraying rice fields for over two decades. With the introduction of light weight drones, the process will see more widespread adoption. Embedded with small multi-spectral sensors, such drones shall also help gather crucial information on farms which would enable farmers to take data-driven accurate decisions.While all such improvements bode well for the agriculture robots market, the hue and cry over rising automation resulting in job losses at an alarming pace is somewhat of a dampener for the market. A short while back, Microsoft founder and trillionaire techie Bill Gates expressed his disproval against rising automation by suggesting taxing of robots that supplant human workers. Coming from a techie of his stature, this sure sounds like a warning bell to the industry that stands at an interesting juncture now waiting to explode.Global Agriculture Robots Market: OverviewThe demand for agriculture robots is increasing as they help in automating the agriculture business and meeting the rising demand from the global market. The technology holds promise of significantly improving crop yield, variety, and quality. The latest agriculture robots developed and introduced, can be put to various applications such as seeding, scouting, weeding, application of fertilizers, harvesting, and irrigation.Request TOC of the Report @The report provides in-depth insights into the various factors supporting the growing of the global agriculture robots market and those restraining its trajectory. It segments the market based on various parameters and covers the drivers and limitations affecting the markets growth across all these segments. Using Porters five forces it gauges the bargaining power of buyers and suppliers, degree of competition prevailing in the market, and the prevailing threat from substitute and new entrants.Global Agriculture Robots Market: Drivers and RestraintsA plethora of benefits offered by agriculture robots such as accuracy and precision, minimal requirement of human labor, faster task accomplishment, cost benefits, and fatigueless functioning will encourage their wider adoption across the global agricultural industry. The rising labor cost is creating substantial demand for automation in the agriculture sector. A few of the innovations expected to bolster adoption of agriculture robots in the long run are use of wireless sensors, driverless tractors, penetration of wearable and drones, proliferation of controls and systems driven robots, and the rising demand for the 3D printing technology in the agriculture sector.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report @Besides these, penetration of the Internet of Things (IoT) will pave way for the popularity of smart farming, which also promises considerable growth opportunities for the market. The rising focus on improving farm yield by leveraging the latest technologies based on satellite is another driver, which the market is expected to benefit from over the forecast period. Due to the fact that natural resources such as land, labor, and water are limited, adopting technology will emerge as the key of improving agricultural production to feed the increasing masses. Given the scenario, agribots are likely to play a vital role and are expected to be used across vital stages of agriculture cycle such as harvesting, watering, sowing, and seeding.On the downside, agricultural robotics need extensive research in order make machines make logical sense of the complex biological environment. Therefore, challenges prevailing in terms of proper execution of machines without destroying the field or crops could limit the adoption of the technology.Global Agriculture Robots Market: Regional OutlookRegionally, the global agriculture robots market can be segmented into Europe, Asia Pacific, North America, and Rest of the World. The demand for agriculture robot is significant high in countries exhibiting high demand for advanced technologies. For instance, the market has found lucrative opportunities in Japan, Australia, Mexico, China, and Canada. In the forthcoming years, the market is expected to witness considerable growth as both Europe and Asia Pacific exhibit a high rate of uptake. However, the U.S. will continue ranking as the fastest growing market and thus exhibit the highest CAGR over the course of the reports forecast period.Global Agriculture Robots Market: Vendor LandscapeSome of the leading players operating in the global agriculture robots market are Autonomous Tractor Corporation, ISO Group, AGROBOT-Soluciones Roboticas Agricolas SL, Blue River Technology, Inc., Autonomous Solution Inc., Agribotix LLC, Deere & Company, Energid Technologies Co., and Yamaha Corporation.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:TMR Research,3739 Balboa St # 1097,San Francisco, CA 94121United StatesTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com Maritime Security Market held the Largest Share during 2017 - 2025 https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=B&rep_id=20 https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=T&rep_id=20 https://www.tmrresearch.com/maritime-security-market Global Maritime Security Market: SnapshotMaritime security involves measures to combat intended damage to ships, ports, and sophisticated infrastructure meant to support marine trade, marine defense, and marine life. It involves utilization of advanced technologies to detect danger and raise alerts well in advance. Inspection is one of the primary activities that maritime security personnel is engaged in and at times also involved in forced boarding of vessels. These actions are termed as visit, board, search, and seizure.Maritime security is one of the key tasks of modern naval forces across the world. For instance, the U.S. Coast Guard is chiefly involved in marine security post the series of catastrophic events of 1917.The task force is engaged in combating sea-based terrorism and other unlawful activities such as piracy, hijacking, and human trafficking. Ships engaged in maritime security are also involved in assisting seafaring vessels in distress.Request Sample Copy of the Report @The International Maritime Organization (IMO) is the regulatory body that provides assistance and guidance to member governments to provide safety of life on the sea and for conserving marine ecological balance. Since its inception in 1959, the IMO has endorsed several conventions to address security challenges related to devastating terrorist activities across the world. Of the several pursuits of the IMO, the organization is seriously engaged in enhancing travel and transport by sea as safe as possible. The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), 1974 is regarded as the most important international treaties for the safety and security of merchant ships. The convention has been amended several times thereafter with the inclusion of tacit adoption agreement.Global Maritime Security Market: OverviewMaritime security is aimed at providing protection to ports, vessels, and the sophisticated infrastructure related to the shipping business against intentional damage through sabotage, subversion, or terrorism. It provides advanced technologies to help detect potential hazards and communicate the same to the concerned officials in no time. It also offers solutions to help combat the potential threats such as transactional crimes, environmental hazards, illegal seaborne immigration, piracy threats, and terrorist attacks. These threats would not only disrupt international trade but can trigger political unrest, which renders maritime security highly imperative for the maritime industry.Request TOC of the Report @Spurred by the aforementioned factors, the global maritime security market is poised to exhibit growth at an impressive pace. Contrary to these, the volatile nature of the international sea trades and recent economic downturns could pose threat to the market. Nevertheless, with leading market players gearing to offer integrated and smart security solutions, the market will have significant opportunities to gain from over the course of the forecast period.The report provides a comprehensive overview of the global maritime security market covering the factors encouraging its expansion and those restraining its growth. It also studies the markets trajectory across various segments. Chapters dedicated to study the vendor landscape profiles some of the most prominent brands providing maritime solutions. The key strategies adopted by these companies and their impact on market operations are studied in detail. The report also gauges the effect of Porters five forces on the overall market operations.Global Maritime Security Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe increasing threat to maritime security and the rising awareness regarding the same are the chief drivers of the global maritime security market. With regulations in favor of deploying advanced security standards, coupled with the proliferation of international sea trade, the market is most likely to witness lucrative opportunities for the growth. While economic downturn and ungoverned marine localities pose a threat for the market, potential technological advancements and the innovation of integrated solutions hold promise for the markets growth in the forecast period.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report @Various countries have specific standards and rules in place to regulate maritime security solutions and systems. These regulations play a crucial role in designing and integrating security systems. Furthermore, several nations around the world have their own rules and policies, adhering to which is mandatory to coordinate and maintain hindrance-free international trades. Such regulations have proven favorable in aiding the growth of the maritime security market in the respective nations. Furthermore, the market is expected to gain from the rising adoption of smart containers.Global Maritime Security Market: Regional OutlookRegionally, North America held the largest share in the global maritime security market, trailed by Asia Pacific. Due to the increasing incidence of security breaches, governments are implementing stringent policies to ensure improved maritime security. Given the scenario, the market is expected to witness rising opportunities in Brazil, Russia, China, and India (BRIC). As per TMR, Asia Pacific is likely to exhibit lucrative opportunities for the global maritime security market.Global Maritime Security Market: Vendor LandscapeSome of the most prominent companies operating in the global maritime security market are Harris Corp., Bae Systems Inc., Northrop Grumman Corporation, Elbit Systems Ltd., Honeywell International, Inc., Kongsberg Gruppen, The Raytheon Company, Genetec, Thales Group, Hikvision Digital Technology, Tyco International Ltd, and others.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:TMR Research,3739 Balboa St # 1097,San Francisco, CA 94121United StatesTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com Safety Sensors and Switches Market Detailed Assessment by 2025 https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=B&rep_id=21 https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=T&rep_id=21 https://www.tmrresearch.com/safety-sensors-and-switches-market Global Safety Sensors and Switches Market: SnapshotThe global market for safety sensors and switches is expected to gain massively from the automotive sector in the next few years. The automotive sector is going through a phase of significant transformation owing to increasingly stricter emission control norms, rising demand for vehicle safety, and fuel efficiency standards. In a bid to transform in accordance to the rapidly changing preferences of buyers and the rising demand for vehicles conforming to the aforementioned features, automakers are using more sensors in vehicles.In the near future, it is believed that the top-line growth of companies operating in the global safety sensors and switches market will be largely driven from the increased use of sensors and switches in public and private transport vehicles, driven on the back of the steady global automotive production growth. The market will also benefit from continuous technological developments and the rising production of smart sensors and switches on a global front. The increased consumer preference to vehicles with additional safety and comfort features will also drive the uptake of safety sensors and switches across the automotive industry, thereby driving the global safety sensors and switches market.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Application areas such as advanced driver assistance systems, smart tire pressure monitoring systems, and hybrid vehicle systems will be some of the key areas requiring the usage of safety sensors and switches. Furthermore, regulatory authorities in China are advocating that original equipment manufacturers in the country start putting smart tire pressure measuring sensors in all new vehicles starting 2019.Global Safety Sensors and Switches Market: OverviewSafety sensors and switches are used to track the presence of any foreign object or identify disturbances happening within a specified radar. Owing to the benefits they offer, the demand for safety sensors is significantly high across diverse industries such as aerospace, manufacturing, automotive, pharmaceutical, mining, and others.The report presents a comprehensive overview of the various factors influencing growth exhibited by the global safety sensors and switched market between 2017 and 2025. It provides an in-depth analysis of market size and drivers, besides discussing the potential restraints in great detail. Besides this, the market also includes regional highlights and snapshots of the segments that would prove most lucrative for the sales of safety sensors and switches.Request TOC of the Report @Global Safety Sensors and Switches Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe increasing demand for improved security measures to ensure protection to workers and production unit against hazards is the chief factor driving the global safety sensors and switches market. The market is also gaining from stringent regulations implemented to ensure high standards of national and international security. Contrary to this, different regions are governed by different regulatory bodies, which have separate set of policies. This could be a constraint limiting the scope for the markets expansion. For instance, in North America regulatory bodies such as the Canadian Standards Association (CSA), Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (UL), and the American National Standard Institute (ANSI) govern machinery safety policies.Nevertheless, with the demand from industries such as aerospace, automotive, oil & gas, pharmaceutical, semiconductors, food & beverages, and mining rising at a phenomenal pace, the pace of gains for the global safety sensors and switches market is expected to remain high through the course of the forecast period. All these industries utilize heavy machineries, which require advanced security measures to ensure protection against potential hazards. This consequently has translated into high sales opportunity for the global safety sensors and switches market.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report @Global Safety Sensors and Switches Market: Regional OutlookRegionally, APAC, Europe, North America, and Rest of the World are key segments in the global safety sensors and switches market. Among these regions, the market is expected to witness lucrative opportunities in APAC. The rising demand from India, China, Brazil, and Latin America has been aiding the expansion of the market in Asia Pacific. Furthermore, the increasing disposable income, urbanization, and the rising demand witnessed in the automotive, food & beverages, and pharmaceutical industries will spur the demand for safety sensors and switches in the region.In addition, the persistently rising demand in North America and Europe will ensure that the pace of gains witnessed by the market remains high throughout the forecast period.Global Safety Sensors and Switches Market: Vendor LandscapeThe report presents a detailed assessment of the markets vendor landscape, for the purpose of which it profiles some of the leading vendors operating therein. Some of the leading companies operating in the global safety sensors and switches market are Pepperl+Fuchs GmbH, Rockwell Automation, KG, Omron Corp., K.A. Schmersal GmbH & Co., and others. The report also conducts SWOT analysis on the leading market players to gauge their strengths and weaknesses. The analysis is also intended to offer insight into the opportunities and threats that the companies could witness over the course of the forecast period.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:TMR Research,3739 Balboa St # 1097,San Francisco, CA 94121United StatesTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com Acne Vulgaris Market Trends and Prospects by 2025 https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=B&rep_id=25 https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=T&rep_id=25 https://www.tmrresearch.com/acne-vulgaris-market Global Acne Vulgaris Market: SnapshotAcne vulgaris-one of the commonest skin disorders-has a multifactorial pathogenesis and is found mainly among adolescents. The pathogenetic mechanism usually consists of four key factors: increased sebum productions, follicular epidermal hyperproliferation, the colonization of bacteria Propionibacterium acnes (P. acne), and effects of inflammation. Successful management of the disease requires a better understanding of various pathogenetic factors and identifying the etiology of the acne in patients. Recent researches in targeted therapeutic modalities have given rise to a host of treatments that meet the specific expectations of the patients and provide enhanced tolerability as well. New treatment options focus on a permutation and combination of anti-acne agents, which are available in the market in varied compositions and formulations.A vast assortment of topical and systemic drugs available in the market is set to expand therapeutic options for a greater number of patients depending on the stage and symptoms of the disease. Some of the prominent therapies recommended for treating acne vulgaris are: use of topical retinoid, combination therapy, hormonal therapies, antibiotics, and oral isotretinoin.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Benzoyl peroxide and topical retinoids are the most widespread treatments preferred by dermatologists. Available in different formulations such as lotions, washes, gels, and creams, they can target a wide spectrum of bacterial agents in cases of mild-to-moderate acne vulgaris and have significant anti-inflammatory effects. The efficacy of retinoids have already been proven for over three decades. Dermatologists prefer this as the first-line of treatment for mild-to-moderate noninflammatory and inflammatory acne lesions. Globally, the most intensely researched topical retinoids for the treatment of acne vulgaris are adapalene and tretinoin. A host of topical antibiotics formulations are helpful in inhibiting the growth of commensal bacteria P. acne and reducing inflammation. Most common topic antibiotics available are clarithromycin, azithromycin, and nadifloxacin; however, lack of clinical studies restrain their adoption in various emerging markets.Global Acne Vulgaris Market: Brief AccountAcne vulgaris is a chronic and most widespread disease of the sebaceous follicles of the human skin. This basically affects the pilosebaceous units which are present in the skin of the chest, back, and face. Many patients elect medical treatment and care as they are mostly concerned about their appearance. Nevertheless, several patients opt for acne vulgaris treatment because of painful and scarring nodules. This type of disease basically begins at puberty owing to an increase in the androgen levels that eventually triggers a rise in the production of sebum from the skins sebaceous glands. This disease is generally characterized through morphological structures including nodules, comedones, and pustules/papules. The disease is eventually treated in terms of acne, the distribution type, severity, and the therapeutics can thus be targeted on the basis of various pathogenic components present. In order to treat the skin disease properly, combination therapy is employed.Request TOC of the Report @The market intelligence report is a comprehensive review of the growth trail in terms of current, historical, and future scenarios of the global acne vulgaris market. It offers an evaluation of the dynamics that are expected to impact the development of the market and the chief trends have also been specified in the research study. The research study also offers a broad lookout on the competitive landscape of the market through Porters five forces analysis. The research publication provides references of mergers and acquisitions, the research and development activities, details on licensing and collaborations. The report probes into the strategies related to marketing, shares, and product portfolio of the key participants operating in the global acne vulgaris market.Global Acne Vulgaris Market: Trends and ProspectsMain driving aspects for the growth of the acne vulgaris market comprise high occurrence of acne vulgaris, growing incidences of several skin infections, growing demand for innovative therapeutics, and rising awareness and affordability among people worldwide. Acne vulgaris is extremely predominant in many parts of the world. Currently, mounting concerns and awareness among people across the globe over the harmful effects of this kind of skin disease will further aid in the growth of the acne vulgaris market.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report @The recent launch of drugs like Galdermas Epiduo, which efficiently targets acne vulgaris, has further boosted the progress of the market. Several drugs which are under different phases of clinical trials such as AndroSciences ASC-J9 and Photocures Visonac (a type of phototherapy) which will soon be commercialized in the global market, will further provide lucrative growth opportunities to vendors operating in the market. Nevertheless, numerous pharmaceutical companies are unwilling towards investing in the research and development activities owing to the poor return on investment from this sector. This might prove to be a restraint in the growth of the market.Global Acne Vulgaris Market: Regional AnalysisGeographically, North America accounts for the leading share in the global acne vulgaris market closely trailed by Europe. The key dynamics responsible for the growth of this market in North America are the high prevalence of acne vulgaris along with high awareness and affordability of among people for their treatment.Global Acne Vulgaris Market: Companies Analyzed in the ReportSome of the key vendors in the market are AndroScience Corporation, Ausio Pharmaceuticals, LLC, Boehringer Ingelheim GlaxoSmithKline plc, GmbH, Photocure ASA, Galderma S.A., Hygeia Therapeutics, Inc., Quest PharmaTech, Inc., Sol-Gel Technologies Ltd. and Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:TMR Research,3739 Balboa St # 1097,San Francisco, CA 94121United StatesTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com Mobile Applications for Melanoma Detection Market - Europe and Israel Industry Analysis https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/mobile-applications-melanoma-detection-market.html https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=5282 https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=5282 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/ Europe and Israel Mobile Applications for Melanoma Detection Market: SnapshotMelanoma is primarily linked to prolonged exposure to UV radiation during childhood and this preventable skin condition has been on a rise in recent years. A significant spike in the incidence rate of melanoma has driven the need for effective and swift detection tools and techniques. Early detection of melanoma is crucial for improved prognosis and this can be achieved by skin surveillance and screening. This growing need, coupled with an increase in efforts to improve the awareness levels about this skin condition, has spurred the trend of early diagnosis. This has, in turn, driven the demand for mobile applications used for the detection of melanoma in Europe as well as Israel.Read Report Overview:Impressive Performance of Greece Market despite Economic VolatilityRegionally, the market for mobile applications for melanoma detection is split into Europe and Israel. Europe accounts for the dominant share and the opportunity in this market is slated to be worth US$1.4 mn by 2022. While the mobile application market for melanoma detection in Europe is fueled by the surge in mHealth trends and rising incidence of melanoma, it is significantly driven by the performance of the market in Greece.Despite the economic volatility in Greece, the market for mobile applications for melanoma detection will continue to witness growth owing to the development of eHealth infrastructure in the country and rising number of melanoma cases. Growing smartphone penetration is also a key factor driving the Greece market for mobile applications for melanoma detection. In addition to this, a high doctor-patient ratio has enabled the establishment of a strong network of doctors dedicated toward the detection of melanoma through mobile health services.Request Sample of Report:The Rest of Europe comprises several key markets for mobile applications for melanoma detection: Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, the U.K., Norway, and Sweden. High internet and smartphone penetration and rising incidence rate and mortality rate of melanoma are the major growth boosters.Strong Penetration of Smartphones and Expanding 3G, 4G Networks Supporting Market in IsraelIsrael is anticipated to witness impressive growth during the forecast period, exhibiting a 61.2% CAGR from 2014 to 2022. The rising prevalence of melanoma has been the primary driving factor in this region, especially based on information provided by the Israel Cancer Association. The organization states that in 2012 alone, nearly 1,300 new cases of malignant melanoma were reported in the country. This has resulted in increasing awareness among the general population regarding self-screening and early detection of cancer.Download Brochure of Report:Rapid expansion of 3G and 4G networks and several government initiatives have also supported the development of the mobile applications market for melanoma detection in Israel. Google Inc.s research titled Our Mobile Planet finds that the smartphone penetration rate in the country crossed 56.0% in 2013. These factors are slated to drive the regional market to reach a value of US$77,765.3 by 2022.Some of the leading mobile applications for melanoma detection in Europe and Israel are Dermatology Planet, UMSkinCheck, Mole Check, Skin Tagger, Track-A-Mole, SkinVision, Spot Mole, Skin Scanner, NAvus, SpotCheck, Mole Monitor, Mole Checker, Mole Checker/Stroika, FotoSKin, Melanoma Watch, Skin Mole Analysis, YourSkinDiary, OnlineDermClinic, Dr. Mole, Mollies Fund, MoleQuest, Skin Analytics, Spot Mole Plus, Skin Cancer, Skin Doctor, Skin Of Mine, iSkin, MoleTrac, Mole Doctor, Skin Prevention, and LovemySkin.About us:Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a U.S.-based provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: The suspended chief executive of Cambridge Analytica said in a secretly recorded video broadcast on Tuesday that his UK-based political consultancy's online campaign played a decisive role in U.S. President Donald Trump's 2016 election victory. CEO Alexander Nix's comments, which could not be verified, are potentially a further problem for Facebook Inc as it faces lawmakers' scrutiny in the United States and Europe over Cambridge Analytica's improper use of 50 million Facebook users' personal data to target voters. The social media network's shares fell for a second day, closing down 2.5 percent, as investors worried that its dealings with Cambridge Analytica might damage its reputation, deter advertisers and invite restrictive regulation. The company has lost $60 billion of its stock market value over the last two days. Cambridge Analytica's board of directors suspended Nix on Tuesday, shortly before the second part of British broadcaster Channel 4's expose of the firm's methods. In the programme Nix describes questionable practices used to influence foreign elections and said his firm did all the research, analytics and targeting of voters for Trump's digital and TV campaigns. He also boasts he met Trump when he was the Republican presidential candidate "many times". Nix's comments "do not represent the values or operations of the firm and his suspension reflects the seriousness with which we view this violation," Cambridge Analytica said in a statement on Tuesday. Cambridge Analytica has denied all the media claims and said it deleted the data after learning the information did not adhere to data protection rules. Brad Parscale, the 2016 Trump campaign's main digital adviser who dealt regularly with Cambridge Analytica, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Nix's claims. Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and now senior adviser, oversaw the Trump campaign's digital operations. One former Trump adviser said Kushner brought Cambridge Analytica into the 2016 campaign effort. Kushner's lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie told the Washington Post on Tuesday that in 2014 conservative strategist Steve Bannon, who would go on to be Trump's White House adviser, oversaw the firm's early efforts to collect Facebook data to build detailed profiles on millions of American voters. (wapo.st/2HOTQNu) Bannon approved spending nearly $1 million to acquire data, including Facebook profiles, in 2014, Wylie told the Post. It is unclear whether Bannon knew how Cambridge Analytica was obtaining the Facebook data, the Post reported. Bannon, who served on Cambridge Analytica's board, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters. U.S. law bans foreigners from making contributions or spending money on behalf of a U.S. election campaign but it was not illegal for the Trump campaign to retain Cambridge Analytica's services, according to Bradley Smith, a former Republican member of the U.S. Federal Election Commission. "The fact that they are a British company doesn't add anything to the analysis unless they were giving their services away for free or charging below-market rates," said Smith, now a professor at the Capital University Law School in Columbus, Ohio. U.S. and European lawmakers have demanded an explanation of how Cambridge Analytica gained access to user data in 2014 and why Facebook failed to inform its users, raising broader industry questions about consumer privacy. Facebook said it had been told by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the leading U.S. consumer regulator, that it would receive a letter this week with questions about the data acquired by Cambridge Analytica. It said it had no indication of a formal investigation. "The entire company is outraged we were deceived," Facebook said in a statement on Tuesday. "We are committed to vigorously enforcing our policies to protect people's information and will take whatever steps are required to see that this happens." The FTC is reviewing whether Facebook violated a 2011 consent decree it reached with the authority over its privacy practices, a person briefed on the matter told Reuters. If the FTC finds Facebook violated terms of the consent decree, it has the power to fine the company thousands of dollars a day per violation, which could add up to billions of dollars. Facebook was also hit on Tuesday in a San Francisco court by the first of what could be many lawsuits by shareholders claiming to suffer losses because the company misled them about its ability to protect user data. The company could also soon face lawsuits on behalf of users whose personal information was exposed. Facebook and its peers Alphabet Inc's Google and Twitter already face a backlash from users and lawmakers over their role during the U.S. presidential election by allowing the spread of false information that might have swayed voters toward Trump. Fear of increased regulation hurt other social media firms on Tuesday. Shares of Snap Inc fell 2.5 percent and Twitter Inc fell more than 10 percent. U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, called on Tuesday for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify in Congress. Congressional staff said the company would brief U.S. Senate and House aides on Wednesday. A Congressional official said House Intelligence Committee Democrats plan to interview Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Wylie. The committee interviewed Nix by video teleconference, according to the Congressional official, but a transcript of that interview has not yet been made public. The Senate Intelligence Committee, which is conducting a long-term investigation of alleged Russian interference in U.S. politics and a detailed examination of U.S. election security precautions, would carry out its own inquiry of Cambridge Analytica, a Congressional official with direct knowledge of the investigation said. The White House said it welcomed inquiries, and that the president believes that Americans' privacy should be protected. Survey: Food Service Equipment Market Share 2018-2025 Haier, Electrolux, Hoshizaki, Illinois Tool Works Food Service Equipment Market http://bit.ly/2pskq7F https://www.globeinforesearch.com/report/north-america-europe-food-service-equipment-market-290 https://www.globeinforesearch.com/ Food Service Equipment Market Research 2018Globel Info Research Recently added detailed market study on the "Global Food Service Equipment Market" Research Report 2018-2025 which provides an outlook of current market value of Food Service Equipment Market as well as the expected forecast of Rate on Investment (ROI) with growing CAGR of XX% in Food Service Equipment Market by the end of 2025. The report on the global Food Service Equipment market uses the top-down and bottom-up approaches to define, analyze, and describe the Food Service Equipment market 2018 trends for the next five years up to 2025.Globel Info Research added latest industry research report Food Service Equipment Market Outlook" focuses on Industry News, Size, Share, Growth Rate, Strategies, Market Position, Trends Across The World. This report on the Global Food Service Equipment Market 2018 provides extremely useful and in-depth perception of the worldwide industry and it covers all the aspects which are highly important in deciding the future of Food Service Equipment industry. This report is an accurate research of the Global Food Service Equipment industry which features the latest technological enhancements, new opening, modern industrial issues and advancements, future policy alterations and all basic and important information about the market.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Food Service Equipment Market 2018 : Haier, Electrolux, Hoshizaki, Illinois Tool Works, Ali, Welbilt, OthersFood Service Equipment Market : By Type Food Preparation Equipment, Drink Preparation Equipment, Cooking Equipment, Heating and holding equipment, OthersFood Service Equipment Market : By Application Restaurants, Hotels, Pubs, Household, Catering, Institutional, OthersThe Global Food Service Equipment Market Provides comprehensive understanding of the market with the help of Food Service Equipment market outlook, opportunities, challenges, trends, Food Service Equipment Market size, share and growth, competitive analysis, major competitors and Porter analysis. Food Service Equipment market report further provides production, capacity, Food Service Equipment market price per region, gross margin for all major regions and countries listed in Food Service Equipment report.The report is very much made with charts, graphs, and practical figures which show the status of the particular Food Service Equipment industry on the global and regional stage. The execution and features of the Food Service Equipment market are assessed in view of the quantitative and qualitative techniques to give a clear picture of the present and future forecast trend.Browse Full Report:Finally, Food Service Equipment 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:"GlobeInfoResearch.com" 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, USAWeb:Email: sales@globeinforesearch.com Global gamma-Undecalactone Market Study, Growth, StatusFuture and Forecast by 2022 Market Research Hub https://www.marketresearchhub.com/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1663723 https://www.marketresearchhub.com/report/global-gamma-undecalactone-market-outlook-2017-2022-report.html https://www.marketresearchhub.com/enquiry.php?type=enquiry&repid=1663723 https://www.marketresearchhub.com/ https://www.industrynewsanalysis.com/ An up-to-date research report has been disclosed by Market Research Hub highlighting the titleGlobal gamma-Undecalactone Market Study, Growth, StatusFuture and Forecast by 2022 which provides an outlook of current market value as well as the expected forecast including Rate on Investment (ROI) together with growing CAGR of XX% during 2018-2025. The report studies the gamma-Undecalactone Market worldwide, especially in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, South America with production, size, growth, revenue, consumption, import and export in these regions.Get Access to Free Sample Report@The global market for gamma-undecalactone (Peach Aldehyde, CAS 104-67-6) will grow at a CAGR of 4.86% by 2022, according to a new report published by Market Research Hub. The report segments the market and forecasts its size, by volume and value, on the basis of application (personal care, food & beverage, cigarette, feed, etc.), and by geography (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, MEA and South America).The report covers forecast and analysis for the gamma-undecalactone market on a global and regional level. The study provides historic data of 2012-2016 along with a forecast from 2017 to 2022 based on both output/volume and revenue. The study then describes the drivers and restraints for the gamma-undecalactone market along with the impact they have on the demand over the forecast period. Additionally, the report includes the study of opportunities available in the gamma-undecalactone market on a global level.The report has been prepared based on the synthesis, analysis, and interpretation of information about the global gamma-undecalactone market collected from specialized sources. The competitive landscape section of the report provides a clear insight into the market share analysis of key industry players. Company overview, financial overview, product portfolio, new project launched, recent development analysis are the parameters included in the profile.Demand for this market rises from the personal care, food & beverage, cigarette, feed, and other applications. All the segments have been analyzed based on present and future trends and the market is estimated from 2017 to 2022. Relevantly, the report and company profiles specify the key drivers that are impacting the demand in global gamma-undecalactone market.Key Applications- Personal Care- Food & Beverage- Cigarette- FeedKey Regions- North America- Europe- Asia Pacific- Middle East and Africa- South AmericaKey Vendors- Advanced Biotech- Anhui Huangye- Beijing Peking University Zoteq- Citrus and Allied- Elan Inc- Kao Corporation- Pujie- Soda Aromatic- request free sample to get a complete list of companiesKey Questions Answered in this Report- What will the market size be in 2022?- What are the key factors driving the global gamma-undecalactone market?- What are the challenges to market growth?- Who are the key players in the gamma-undecalactone market?- What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key players?Browse Full Report with TOC@Part 1. Exclusive SummaryPart 2. Methodology2.1 Research Methodology2.2 Geographic Scope2.3 Years ConsideredPart 3. Introduction3.1 General Information3.2 Fields of Application3.3 Manufacturing Process3.4 Raw Materials3.5 Cost AnalysisPart 4. Competitive Landscape4.1 Global gamma-Undecalactone Market, by Volume 2012-20174.1.1 Overview4.1.2 Global gamma-Undecalactone Market, by Volume, by Company4.1.3 Top 3 Companies by Volume Share4.2 Global gamma-Undecalactone Market, by Revenue 2012-20174.2.1 Overview4.2.2 Global gamma-Undecalactone Market, by Revenue, by Company4.2.3 Top 3 Companies by Revenue SharePart 5. Market Dynamics5.1 Market Drivers5.2 Challenges5.3 Market TrendsPart 6. Segmentation by Application6.1 Overview6.2 Global gamma-Undecalactone Market by Application (Volume)6.3 Global gamma-Undecalactone Market by Application (Revenue)Part 7. Supply by Region7.1 Global gamma-Undecalactone Volume by Region7.1.1 North America7.1.2 Europe7.1.3 Asia-Pacific7.1.4 Middle East and Africa7.1.5 South America7.2 Global gamma-Undecalactone Revenue by Region7.2.1 North America7.2.2 Europe7.2.3 Asia-Pacific7.2.4 Middle East and Africa7.2.5 South AmericaPart 8. Consumption Pattern8.1 North America8.1.1 Overview8.1.2 by Application8.1.3 by Country (U.S., Canada, etc.)8.2 Europe8.2.1 Overview8.2.2 by Application8.2.3 by country (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain, etc.)8.3 Asia-Pacific8.3.1 Overview8.3.2 by Application8.3.3 by Country (China, Japan, India, Korea, Australia, Indonesia, etc.)8.4 Middle East and Africa8.4.1 Overview8.4.2 by Application8.4.3 by Country (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, UAE, etc.)8.5 South America8.5.1 Overview8.5.2 by Application8.5.3 by Country (Brazil, Argentina, etc.)Part 9. gamma-Undecalactone Market Forecast9.1 Global gamma-Undecalactone Market Size 2017-20229.2 Global gamma-Undecalactone Supply by Region 2017-20229.2.1 North America9.2.2 Europe9.2.3 Asia-Pacific9.2.4 Middle East and Africa9.2.5 South America9.3 Global gamma-Undecalactone Consumption 2017-20229.4 Global gamma-Undecalactone Market by Application 2017-2022Part 10. Key Vendors10.1 Company Profiles10.2 Market Share10.3 FinancialsPart 11. Industry Activity11.1 M&As, JVs and Partnership11.2 Other DevelopmentsPart 12. Appendix12.1 Abbreviations12.2 DisclaimerEnquire about this Report@About Market Research HubMarket Research Hub (MRH) is a next-generation reseller of research reports of different sector like chemicals industry reports and analysis. MRHs expansive collection of industry reports has been carefully curated to help key personnel and decision makers across industry verticals to clearly visualize their operating environment and take strategic steps.MRH functions as an integrated platform for the following products and services: Objective and sound market forecasts, qualitative and quantitative analysis, incisive insight into defining industry trends, and market share estimates. Our reputation lies in delivering value and world-class capabilities to our clients.Contact Us90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United StatesToll Free: 800-998-4852 (US-Canada)Email: press@marketresearchhub.comWebsite:Read Industry News at - Barbecue Sauce Market Trends, Leading Players Updates 2018 | Kraft Foods, ConAgra Foods, Sweet Baby Rays, KC Masterpiece | Research Report https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/4360 Market Overview:Barbecue sauce, which is also referred as BBQ sauce, is a flavor enhancer and is used as marinade for cooking barbecue styled meat or vegetables. Barbecue food are prepared by smoke grilling them which helps in sustaining the nutritional value and also imparts a unique flavor to the food product. Increasing health benefits among the consumers have raised the demand for healthy and roasted meat and vegetables which has a direct impact on the sale of barbecue sauce for its preparation. Barbecue sauce is estimated to be originated from the U.S. and is popularly used in the country. Barbecue sauce is often referred to as ketchups in several countries of Europe and Asia Pacific. Barbecue sauce is available throughout the regions in various flavors and forms which has also added value to the product. Increasing disposable income and changing food consumption trends are supporting the growth of this market on a global level.High demand for healthy and grilled meat and vegetables has a direct impact on barbecue sauce market. Rising consumer demand for uniquely flavored food products prepared with flavor enhancers are influencing the growth of barbecue sauce market positively. Shifting consumers food consumption pattern backed up by increasing disposable income is propelling the growth of this market. Low production cost and high returns based on the demands are encouraging the players to enter the barbecue sauce market. Furthermore, high focus on R & D has a positive impact on this market and is helping the manufacturers in bringing innovations in the flavors.Receive a Sample Report for more Detailed Information @Key players have more inclination towards enhancing the production of organic as well as non-GMO barbecue sauce to satiate the growing demand from consumers end. Also, product improvisations to enhance the shelf-life of the product is of one of the key focus areas where manufacturers emphasizing more on delivering unique products and to create product differentiation.Major Key Players:Some of the key players profiled in the global barbecue sauce market are Kraft Foods Inc. (U.S.), ConAgra Foods, Inc. (U.S.), Sweet Baby Rays (U.S.), KC Masterpiece (U.S.), J Lee's Gourmet Bbq Sauce Inc. (U.S.), Memphis Barbecue Co (U.S.) and Killer Hogs (U.S.)Regional Analysis:The global Barbecue sauce market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and rest of the world (ROW). North America accounts for the major market share followed by Europe. High consumption of barbecued/roasted food in the countries of these regions is influencing the high production volume of barbecue sauce. Owing to changing food consumption pattern, Barbecue sauce market is projected to generate high revenue during the given forecast period.Furthermore, rising demand for cross culture cuisines will support the sale of barbecue sauce across the regions during the assessment period. The major importers of barbecue sauce include the U.S., the U.K., France, Canada and Germany.Key Findings:Consumption of organic barbecue sauce will be growing at a higher rate during the forecast period owing to rising awareness about health benefits obtained from chemical-free food ingredientsTop exporters of barbecue sauce include the U.S., Canada, China, Italy and GermanySegments:Barbecue sauce has been segmented on the basis of form, which comprises of liquid, paste, others. Paste form of barbecue sauce is found to hold a major share owning to fine consistency and ease of application than other forms.Barbecue sauce has been segmented on the basis of flavor, which includes cultured sweet, sour, spicy, others, and others. Among these segments, spicy sauce segment dominates the global market based on high consumer based demand.Barbecue sauce has been segmented on the basis of specialty attributes, which includes organic, gluten-free, non-GMO, others. Among these segments, organic segment dominates the global market based on rising consumers awareness and demand for natural food ingredients.Barbecue sauce has been segmented on the basis of distribution channel, which comprises store based (supermarkets/hypermarkets, specialty retailers, convenience stores, others), and non-store based (e- commerce). Sale through store based channels dominates the market due to convenient one-stop shopping experience of the consumers.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.ContactMarket Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com Almond Butter Market Driven by High Nutritional Value of Almond Butter https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=22469 https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/checkout.php?rep_id=22469